THEGLORYOF 
CLEMENTINA 


WILLIAM  J .  LOCKE 


UCSB  LIBRARY 


(~~^-&&Cs*9~^-0(l 

. 


THE  GLORY 

CF 
CLEMENTINA 


THE  GLORY  OF 
CLEMENTINA 

By  WILLIAM  J.  LOCKE 


Author  of  "Idols,"  "Septimus,"  "Derelicts,"  "Simon 
the  Jester,"  "The  Beloved  Vagabond,"  etc. 


WITH  FOUK  ILLUSTRATIONS 
BY   ARTHUR    I.    KELLER 


A.  L.  BURT  COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS  NEW  YORK 


COPYRIGHT,  1911 
BY  THE  CURTIS  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,  1911 
BY  JOHN  LANE  COMPANY 


THE  GLORY 

OF 
CLEMENTINA 


CHAPTER  I 

UNLESS  you  knew  that  by  taking  a  few  turn- 
ings in  any  direction  and  walking  for  five 
minutes  you  would  inevitably  come  into  one 
of  the  great,  clashing,  shrieking  thoroughfares  of 
London,  you  might  think  that  Romney  Place,  Chelsea, 
was  situated  in  some  world-forgotten  cathedral  city. 
Why  it  is  called  a  "  place,"  history  does  not  record.  It 
is  simply  a  street,  or  double  terrace,  the  quietest,  se- 
datest,  most  unruffled,  most  old-maidish  street  you  can 
imagine.  Its  primness  is  painful.  It  is  rigorously 
closed  to  organ-grinders  and  German  bands ;  and  itin- 
erant vendors  of  coal  would  have  as  much  hope  of  sell- 
ing their  wares  inside  the  British  Museum  as  of  attract- 
ing custom  in  Romney  Place  by  their  raucous  appeal. 
Little  dogs  on  leads  and  lazy  Persian  cats  are  its  genii 
loci.  It  consists  of  a  double  row  of  little  Early  Vic- 
torian houses,  each  having  a  basement  protected  by 
area  railings,  an  entrance  floor  reached  by  a  prim 
little  flight  of  steps,  and  an  upper  floor.  Three  little 
houses  close  one  end  of  the  street,  a  sleepy  little 
modern  church  masks  the  other.  Each  house  has  a 
tiny  back  garden  which,  on  the  south  side,  owing 
to  the  gradual  slope  of  the  ground  river  wards,  is  on  a 
level  with  the  basement  floor  and  thus  on  a  lower 
level  than  the  street.  Some  of  the  houses  on  this 
south  side  are  constructed  with  a  studio  on  the  gar- 
den level  running  the  whole  height  of  the  house.  A 
sloping  skylight  in  the  roof  admits  the  precious  north 
light,  and  a  French  window  leads  on  to  the  garden. 

i 


2         THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

A  gallery  runs  round  the  studio,  on  a  level  and  in 
communication  with  the  entrance  floor;  and  from  this 
to  the  ground  is  a  spiral  staircase. 

From  such  a  gallery  did  Tommy  Burgrave,  one 
November  afternoon,  look  down  into  the  studio  of 
Clementina  Wing.  She  was  not  alone,  as  he  had  ex- 
pected; for  in  front  of  an  easel  carrying  a  nearly 
finished  portrait  stood  the  original,  a  pretty,  dainty 
girl  accompanied  by  a  well-dressed,  well-fed,  bullet- 
headed,  bull  -  necked,  commonplace  young  man. 
Clementina,  on  hearing  footsteps,  looked  up. 

"I'm  sorry "  he  began.  "They  didn't  tell 

me " 

"  Don't  run  away.  We're  quite  through  with  the 
sitting.  Come  down.  This  is  Mr.  Burgrave,  a  neigh- 
bour of  mine,"  she  explained.  "  Tries  to  paint,  too—- 
Miss Etta  Concannon — Captain  Hilyard." 

She  performed  perfunctory  introductions.  The 
group  lingered  round  the  portrait  for  a  few  moments, 
and  then  the  girl  and  the  young  man  went  away. 
Clementina  scrutinised  the  picture,  sighed,  pushed  the 
easel  to  a  corner  of  the  studio  and  drew  up  another 
one  into  the  light.  Tommy  sat  on  the  model-throne 
and  lit  a  cigarette. 

"Who's  the  man?" 

"  This  ?  "  asked  Clementina,  pointing  to  the  new 
portrait,  that  of  a  stout  and  comfortable-looking  gen- 
tleman. 

"  No.  The  man  with  Miss  Etta  Something.  I  like 
the  name  Etta." 

"  He's  engaged  to  her.  I  told  you  his  name,  Captam 
Hilyard.  He  called  for  her.  I  don't  like  him,"  replied 
Clementina,  whose  language  was  abrupt. 

"  He  looks  rather  a  brute — and  she's  as  pretty  as 
paint.  It  must  be  awful  hard  lines  on  a  girl  when  she 
gets  hold  of  a  bad  lot." 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA         3 

"You're  right,"  she  said,  gathering  up  palette  and 
brushes.  Then  she  turned  on  him.  "  What  are  you 
wasting  precious  daylight  for?  Why  aren't  you  at 
work?" 

"  I  feel  rather  limp  this  afternoon,  and  want  stimu- 
lating. So  I  thought  I'd  come  in.  Can  I  stay  ?  " 

"  Oh,  Lord,  yes,  you  can  stay,"  said  Clementina, 
dabbing  a  vicious  bit  of  paint  on  the  canvas  and  step- 
ping back  to  observe  the  effect.  "  Though  you  limp 
young  men  who  need  stimulating  make  me  tired — 
as  tired,"  she  added,  with  another  stroke,  "  as  this 
horrible  fat  man's  trousers." 

"  I  don't  see  why  you  need  have  painted  his  trousers. 
Why  not  have  made  him  half  length?  " 

"  Because  he's  the  kind  of  cheesemonger  that  wants 
value  for  his  money.  If  I  cut  him  off  at  the  waist 
he  would  think  he  was  cheated.  He  pays  to  have  his 
hideous  trousers  painted,  and  so  I  paint  them." 

"  But  you're  an  artist,  Clementina." 

"  I  got  over  the  disease  long  ago,"  she  replied 
grimly,  still  dabbing  at  the  creases  of  the  abominable 
and  unmentionable  garments.  "  A  woman  of  my  age 
and  appearance  hasn't  any  illusions  left.  If  she  has, 
she's  a  fool.  I  paint  portraits  for  money,  so  that  one 
of  these  days  I  may  be  able  to  retire  from  trade  and 
be  a  lady.  Bah !  Art !  Look  at  that !  " 

"  Hi !  Stop !  "  laughed  Tommy,  as  soon  as  the  result 
of  the  fresh  brush-stroke  was  revealed.  "  Don't  make 
the  infernal  things  more  hideous  than  they  are  al- 
ready." 

"  That's  where  I  get  '  character,'  "  she  said  sar- 
castically. "  People  like  it.  They  say :  '  How  rug- 
ged !  How  strong !  How  expressive ! '  Look  at  the 
fat,  self-satisfied  old  pig! — and  they  pay  me  in  guineas 
where  the  rest  of  you  high  artistic  people  get  shillings. 
If  I  had  the  courage  of  my  convictions  and  painted 


4         THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

him  with  a  snout,  they'd  pay  me  in  lacs  of  rupees. 
Art !  Don't  talk  of  it.  I'm  sick  of  it." 

"  All  right,"  said  Tommy,  calmly  puffing  away  at 
his  cigarette,  "  I  won't.  Art  is  long  and  the  talk  about 
it  is  longer,  thank  God.  So  it  will  keep." 

He  was  a  fresh- faced,  fair-haired  boy  of  two-and- 
twenty,  and  the  chartered  libertine  of  Clementina's 
exclusive  studio.  His  uncle,  Ephraim  Quixtus,  had 
married  a  distant  relation  of  Clementina,  so,  in  a 
vague  way,  she  was  a  family  connection.  To  this  fact 
he  owed  acquaintance  with  her — indeed,  he  had 
known  her  dimly  from  boyhood;  but  his  intimacy 
he  owed  to  a  certain  charm  and  candour  of  youth 
which  had  found  him  favour  in  her  not  very  tolerant 
eyes. 

He  sat  on  the  model-throne,  clasping  his  knee,  and, 
wonderingly,  admiringly,  watched  her  paint.  For  all 
her  cynical  depreciation  of  her  art,  she  was  a  portrait- 
painter  of  high  rank,  possessing  the  portrait-painter's 
magical  gift  of  getting  at  essentials,  of  splashing  the 
very  soul,  miserable  or  noble,  of  the  subject  upon 
the  canvas.  She  had  a  rough,  brilliant  method,  direct 
and  uncompromising  as  her  speech.  To  see  her  at 
work  was  at  once  Tommy  Burgrave's  delight  and  his 
despair.  Had  she  been  a  young  and  pretty  woman, 
his  masculine  vanity  might  have  smarted.  But 
Clementina,  with  her  ugliness,  gruffness,  and  untidi- 
ness, scarcely  ranked  as  a  woman  in  his  disingenuous 
mind.  You  couldn't  possibly  fall  in  love  with  her ;  no 
one  could  ever  have  fallen  in  love  with  her.  And  she, 
of  course,  had  never  had  the  remotest  idea  of  falling 
in  love  with  anybody.  To  his  boyish  fancy,  Clemen- 
tina in  love  was  a  grotesque  conception.  Besides,  she 
might  be  any  age.  He  decided  that  she  must  be  about 
fifty.  But  when  you  made  allowances  for  her  gruff- 
ness  and  eccentricities,  you  found  that  she  was  a  good 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA         5 

sort — and,   there  was  no  doubt  about  it,   she   could 
paint. 

Of  course,  Clementina  might  have  made  herself 
look  much  younger  and  more  prepossessing,  and 
thereby  have  pleased  the  fancy  of  Tommy  Burgrave. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  she  was  only  thirty-five.  Many  a 
woman  with  more  years  and  even  less  foundation  of 
beauty  than  Clementina  flaunts  about  the  world  break- 
ing men's  hearts,  obfusticating  their  common  sense, 
and  exerting  all  the  bewildering  influences  of  a  se- 
ductive sex.  She  only  has  to  do  her  hair,  attend  to 
her  skin,  and  attire  herself  in  more  or  less  becoming 
raiment.  Very  little  care  suffices.  Men  are  ludi- 
crously easy  to  please  in  the  way  of  female  attractive- 
ness— but  they  draw  the  line  somewhere.  It  must 
be  confessed  that  they  drew  it  at  Clementina  Wing. 
Her  coarse  black  hair  straggled  perpetually  in  un- 
cared-for strands  between  fortuitous  hairpins.  Her 
complexion  was  dark  and  oily;  her  nose  had  never 
been  powdered  since  its  early  infancy;  and  her  face, 
even  when  she  walked  abroad,  was  often  disfigured, 
as  it  was  now,  by  a  smudge  of  paint.  She  had  heed- 
lessly suffered  the  invasion  of  lines  and  wrinkles.  A 
deep  vertical  furrow  had  settled  hard  between  her 
black,  overhanging  brows.  She  had  intensified  and 
perpetuated  the  crow's-feet  between  her  eyes  by  a 
trick,  when  concentrating  her  painter's  vision  on  a 
sitter,  of  screwing  her  face  into  a  monkey's  myriad 
wrinkles.  She  dressed,  habitually,  in  any  old  blouse, 
any  old  skirt,  any  old  hat  picked  up  at  random  in  bed- 
room or  studio,  and  picked  up  originally,  with  equal 
lack  of  selection,  in  any  miscellaneous  emporium  of 
feminine  attire.  When  her  figure,  which,  as  women 
acquaintances  would  whisper  to  each  other,  but  never 
(not  daring)  to  Clementina,  had,  after  all,  its  possi- 
bilities, was  hidden  by  a  straight,  shapeless,  colour- 


6         THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

smeared  painting-smock,  and  all  of  Clementina  as 
God  made  her  that  was  visible,  save  her  capable  hands, 
was  the  swarthy  face  with  its  harsh  contours,  its  high 
cheekbones,  its  unlovely,  premature  furrows,  sur- 
mounted by  the  bedraggled  hair  that  would  have  dis- 
graced a  wigwam,  Tommy  Burgrave  may  be  pardoned 
for  regarding  her  less  as  a  woman  than  a  painter  of 
genius  who  somehow  did  not  happen  to  be  a  man. 

Presently  she  laid  down  palette  and  brushes  and 
pushed  the  easel  to  one  side. 

"  I  can't  do  any  more  at  it  without  a  model.  Be- 
sides, it's  getting  dark.  Ring  for  tea." 

She  threw  off  her  painting-smock,  revealing  herself 
in  an  old  brown  skirt  and  a  soiled  white  blouse  gaping 
at  the  back,  and  sank  with  a  sigh  of  relief  into  a  chair. 
It  was  good  to  sit  down,  she  said.  She  had  been 
standing  all  day.  She  would  be  glad  to  have  some  tea. 
It  would  take  the  taste  of  the  trousers  out  of  her 
mouth. 

"If  you  dislike  them  so  much,  why  did  you  rush 
at  them,  as  soon  as  those  people  had  gone  ?  " 

"  To  get  the  girl's  face  out  of  my  mind.  Look  here, 
won  petit,"  she  said,  turning  on  him  suddenly,  "  if 
you  ask  questions  I'll  turn  you  into  the  street.  I'm 
tired ;  give  me  something  to  smoke." 

He  disinterred  a  yellow,  crumpled  packet  of  French 
tobacco  and  cigarette-papers  from  among  a  litter  on 
the  table,  and  lit  the  cigarette  for  her  when  she  had 
rolled  it. 

"  I  suppose  you're  the  only  woman  in  London  who 
rolls  her  own  cigarettes." 

"  Well?  "  asked  Clementina. 

He  laughed.    "  That's  all." 

"  It  was  an  idiotic  remark,"  said  Clementina. 

The  maid  brought  in  tea,  and  it  was  Tommy  who 
played  host.  She  softened  a  little  as  he  waited  on  her. 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA         7 

"  I  was  meant  to  be  a  lady,  Tommy,  and  do  nothing. 
This  paint-brush  walloping — after  all,  what  is  it? 
What's  the  good  of  painting  these  fools'  portraits?  " 

"  Each  of  them  is  work  of  genius,"  said  Tommy. 

"  Rot  and  rubbish,"  said  Clementina.  "Let  me  clear 
your  mind  of  a  lot  of  foolish  nonsense  you  hear  at 
your  high-art  tea-parties,  where  women  drivel  and 
talk  of  their  mission  in  the  world.  A  woman  has  only 
one  mission;  to  marry  and  get  babies.  Keep  that 
fact  in  front  of  you  when  you're  taking  up  with  any 
of  'em.  Genius!  I  can't  be  a  genius  for  the  simple 
reason  that  I'm  a  woman.  Did  you  ever  hear  of  a 
man-mother  ?  No.  It's  a  contradiction  in  terms.  So 
there  can't  be  a  woman-genius." 

"  But  surely,"  Tommy  objected,  more  out  of  polite- 
ness, perhaps,  than  conviction,  for  every  male  creature 
loves  to  be  conscious  of  his  sex's  superiority.  "  Surely 
there  was  Rosa  Bonheur — and — and  in  your  line, 
Madame  Vigee  Le  Brun." 

"  Very  pretty,"  said  Clementina,  "  but  stick  them 
beside  Paul  Potter  and  Gainsborough,  and  what  do 
they  look  like?  Could  a  woman  have  painted  Paul 
Potter's  bull?" 

"  What's  your  definition  of  genius  ?  "  asked  Tommy, 
evading  the  direct  question.  He  had  visited  The 
Hague,  and  stood  in  rapt  wonder  before  what  is  per- 
haps the  most  essentially  masculine  bit  of  painting  in 
the  world.  Certainly  no  woman  could  have  painted  it. 

"  Genius,"  said  Clementina,  screwing  up  her  face 
and  looking  at  the  tip  of  a  discoloured  thumb,  "  is 
the  quality  the  creative  spirit  assumes  as  soon  as  it 
can  liberate  itself  from  the  bond  of  the  flesh." 

"  Good,"  said  Tommy.  "  Did  you  make  up  that 
all  at  once?  It  knocks  Carlyle's  definition  silly.  But 
I  don't  see  why  it  doesn't  apply  equally  to  men  and 
women." 


8         THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

"  Woman,"  said  Clementina,  "  has  always  her  sex 
hanging  round  the  neck  of  her  spirit." 

Tommy  stared.  This  was  a  new  conception  of 
woman  which  he  was  too  young  and  candid  to  under- 
stand. For  him  women — or  rather  that  class  of  the 
sex  that  counted  for  him  as  women,  the  mothers  and 
sisters  and  wives  of  his  friends,  the  women  from 
whose  midst  one  of  these  days  he  would  select  a  wife 
himself — were  very  spiritual  creatures  indeed.  That 
twilight  region  of  their  being  in  which  their  sex  had  a 
home  was  holy  ground  before  entering  which  a  man 
must  take  the  shoes  from  off  his  feet.  He  took  it  for 
granted  that  every  unmarried  woman  believed  in  the 
stork  or  gooseberry  bush  theory  of  the  population  of 
the  world.  A  girl  allowed  you  to  kiss  her  because  she 
was  kind  and  good  and  altruistic,  realising  that  it  gave 
you  considerable  pleasure;  but  as  for  the  girl  craving 
the  kiss  for  the  satisfaction  of  her  own  needs,  that  was 
undreamed  of  in  his  ingenuous  philosophy.  And  here 
was  Clementina  laying  it  down  as  a  fundamental  ax- 
iom that  woman  has  her  sex  always  hanging  round 
the  neck  of  her  spirit.  He  was  both  mystified  and 
shocked. 

"  I'm  afraid  you  don't  know  what  you're  talking 
about.  Clementina,"  he  said  at  last,  with  some  severity. 

Indeed,  how  on  earth  could  Clementina  know  ? 

"  Perhaps  I  don't,  Tommy,"  she  said,  with  ironical 
meekness,  realising  the  gulf  between  them  and  the  rev- 
erence, which,  as  the  Latin  Grammar  tells  us,  is  espe- 
cially due  to  tender  youth.  She  looked  into  the  fire, 
a  half-smile  playing  round  her  grim,  unsmiling  lips, 
and  there  was  silence  for  a  few  moments.  Then  she 
asked,  brusquely: 

"  How's  that  uncle  of  yours?  " 

"  All  right,"  said  Tommy.  "  I'm  dining  with  him 
this  evening." 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA         9 

"  I  hear  he  has  taken  to  calling  himself  Dr.  Quixtus 
lately." 

"  He's  entitled  to  do  so.  He's  a  Ph.D.  of  Heidel- 
berg. I  wish  you  didn't  have  your  knife  into  him  so 
much,  Clementina.  He's  the  best  and  dearest  chap 
in  the  world.  Of  course,  he's  getting  rather  elderly 
and  precise.  He'll  be  forty  next  birthday,  you 
know " 

"  Lord  save  us,"  said  Clementina. 

" -but  one  has  to  make  allowances  for  that. 

Anyway,"  he  added,  with  a  flash  of  championship, 
"  he's  the  most  courtly  gentleman  I've  ever  met." 

"  He's  civil  enough,"  said  Clementina.  "  But  if  I 
were  his  wife,  I'm  sure  I  would  throw  him  out  of 
window." 

Tommy  stared  again  for  a  moment,  and  then 
laughed — more  at  the  idea  of  the  quaint  old  thing  that 
was  Clementina  being  married  than  at  the  picture  of 
his  uncle's  grotesque  ejectment. 

"  I  don't  think  that's  ever  likely  to  happen,"  he 
remarked. 

"  Nor  do  I,"  said  Clementina. 

Soon  after  that  Tommy  departed  as  unceremoni- 
ously as  he  had  entered.  Not  that  Tommy  Burgrave 
was  by  nature  unceremonious,  being  a  boy  of  excellent 
breeding ;  but  no  one  stood  on  ceremony  with  Clemen- 
tina; the  elaborate  politeness  of  the  Petit  Trianon  was 
out  of  place  in  the  studio  of  a  lady  who  would  tell 
you  to  go  to  the  devil  as  soon  as  look  at  you. 

When  the  door  at  the  end  of  the  gallery  closed 
behind  him  she  gave  a  sigh  of  relief,  and  rolled  an- 
other cigarette.  There  are  times  when  the  most  obsti- 
nate woman's  nerves  are  set  on  edge,  and  she  craves 
either  solitude  or  a  sympathetic  presence.  Now,  she 
was  very  fond  of  Tommy;  but  what,  save  painting 
and  cricket  and  the  young  animal's  joy  of  life,  could 


io       THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

Tommy  understand  ?  She  regretted  having-  spoken  of 
sex  and  spirit  to  his  uncomprehending  ears.  Generally 
she  held  herself  and  even  her  unruly  tongue  under 
control.  But  this  afternoon  she  had  lost  grip.  The 
sitting  had  strangely  affected  her,  for  she  had  divined, 
as  she  had  not  done  on  previous  occasions,  the  wistful 
terror  that  lurked  in  the  depths  of  the  young  girl's 
soul — a  divination  that  had  been  confirmed  by  the 
quick  look  of  fear  with  which  she  had  greeted  the 
bullet-headed  young  man  when  he  had  arrived  to 
escort  her  home.  And  Tommy,  with  his  keen  young 
vision,  had  summed  him  up  in  a  few  words. 

She  turned  on  the  great  lamp  suspended  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  studio,  and  drew  the  easel  containing  the 
girl's  portrait  into  the  light.  She  gazed  at  it  for  a 
while  intently,  and  then,  throwing  herself  into  her 
chair  by  the  fire,  remained  there  motionless,  with 
parted  lips,  in  the  attitude  of  a  woman  overwhelmed 
by  memories. 

They  went  back  fifteen  years,  when  she  was  this 
girl's  age.  She  had  not  this  girl's  bearing  and  flower- 
like  grace ;  but  she  had  her  youth  and  everything  in  it 
that  stood  for  the  promise  of  life.  She  had  memories 
of  her  mirrored  self — quite  a  dainty  slip  of  a  girl  in 
spite  of  her  homely  face,  her  hair  wound  around  a 
not  unshapely  head  in  glossy  coils,  and  her  figure 
set  off  by  delicately  fitting  clothes.  And  there  was 
a  light  in  her  eyes  because  a  man  loved  her  and  she 
had  given  all  the  richness  of  herself  to  the  man.  They 
were  engaged  to  be  married.  Yet,  for  all  her  tremu- 
lous happiness,  terror  lurked  in  the  depths  of  her  soul. 
Many  a  night  she  awoke,  gripped  by  the  nameless  fear, 
unreasonable,  absurd ;  for  the  man  in  her  eyes  was  as 
handsome  and  debonair  as  any  prince  out  of  a  fairy 
tale.  Her  mother  and  father,  who  were  then  both 
alive,  came  under  the  spell  of  the  man's  fascinations. 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA       IF 

He  was  of  good  family,  fair  private  income,  and  was 
making  a  position  for  himself  in  the  higher  walks  of 
journalism;  a  man  too  of  unsullied  reputation.  A 
gallant  lover,  he  loved  her  as  in  her  dreams  she  had 
dreamed  of  being  loved.  The  future  held  no  flaw. 

Suddenly,  something  so  grotesque  happened  as  to 
awaken  all  her  laughter  and  indignation.  Roland 
Thorne  was  arrested  on  a  charge  of  theft.  A  lady, 
a  stranger,  the  only  other  occupant  of  a  railway- 
carriage  in  which  he  happened  to  be  travelling  from 
Plymouth  to  London,  missed  some  valuable  diamonds 
from  a  jewel-case  beside  her  on  the  seat.  At  Bath 
she  had  left  the  carriage  for  a  minute  to  buy  a  novel 
at  the  bookstall,  leaving  the  case  in  the  compartment. 
She  brought  evidence  to  prove  that  the  diamonds 
were  there  when  she  left  Plymouth  and  were  not  there 
when  she  arrived  at  her  destination  in  London.  The 
only  person,  according  to  the  prosecution,  who  could 
have  stolen  them  was  Roland  Thorne,  during  her 
temporary  absence  at  Bath.  Thorne  treated  the  mat- 
ter as  a  ludicrous  annoyance.  So  did  Clementina, 
as  soon  as  her  love  and  anger  gave  place  to  her  sense 
of  humour.  And  so  did  the  magistrate  who  dismissed 
the  charge,  saying  that  it  ought  never  to  have  been 
brought. 

With  closed  eyes,  the  woman  in  front  of  the  fire 
recalled  their  first  long  passionate  kiss  after  he  had 
brought  the  news  of  his  acquittal,  and  she  shivered. 
She  remembered  how  he  had  drawn  back  his  hand- 
some head  and  looked  into  her  eyes. 

"  You  never  for  one  second  thought  me  guilty?  " 

Something  in  his  gaze  checked  the  cry  of  scorn  at 
her  lips.  The  nameless  terror  clutched  her  heart. 
She  drew  herself  slowly,  gradually,  out  of  his  embrace, 
keeping  her  widened  eyes  fixed  on  him.  He  stood 
motionless  as  she  recoiled.  The  horrible  truth  dawned 


12       THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

on  her.  He  was  guilty.  She  sat  on  the  nearest  chair, 
white-lipped  and  shaken. 

"You?    You?" 

Whether  the  man  had  meant  to  make  the  confession, 
probably  he  himself  did  not  know.  Overwrought 
nerves  may  have  given  way.  But  there  he  stood  at 
that  moment,  self-confessed.  In  a  kind  of  dream 
paralysis  she  heard  him  make  his  apologia.  He  said 
something  of  sins  of  his  youth,  of  blackmail,  of  large 
sums  of  money  to  be  paid,  so  as  to  avert  ruin;  how 
he  had  idly  touched  the  jewel-case,  without  thought 
of  theft,  how  it  had  opened  easily,  how  the  temptation 
to  slip  the  case  of  diamonds  into  his  pocket  had  been 
irresistible.  His  voice  seemed  a  toneless  echo,  far 
away.  He  said  many  things  that  she  did  not  hear. 
Afterwards  she  had  &  confused  memory  that  he 
pleaded  for  mercy  at  her  hands.  He  had  only  yielded 
in  a  moment  of  desperate  madness;  he  would  make 
secret  restitution  of  the  diamonds.  He  threw  himself 
on  the  ground  at  her  feet  and  kissed  her  skirt,  but 
she  sat  petrified,  speechless,  stricken  to  her  soul.  Then 
without  a  word  or  a  sign  from  her,  he  went  out. 

The  woman  by  the  fire  recalled  the  anguish  of  the 
hour  of  returning  life.  It  returned  with  the  pain  of 
blood  returning  to  frost-bitten  flesh.  She  loved  him 
with  every  quivering  fibre.  No  crime  or  weakness  in 
the  world  could  alter  that.  Her  place  was  by  his 
side,  to  champion  him  through  evil,  to  ward  off 
temptation,  to  comfort  him  in  his  time  of  need.  Her 
generous  nature  cried  aloud  for  him,  craved  to  take 
him  into  her  arms  and  lay  his  head  against  her  bosom. 
She  scorned  herself  for  having  turned  to  him  a  heart 
of  stone,  for  letting  him  go  broken  and  desperate 
into  the  world.  A  touch  would  have  changed  his  hell 
to  heaven,  and  she  had  not  given  it.  She  rose  and 
stood  for  a  while,  this  girl  of  twenty,  transfigured, 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA       13 

vibrating  with  a  great  purpose — the  woman  of  thirty- 
five  remembered  (ah,  God!)  the  thrill  of  it.  The 
flames  of  the  sunrise  spread  through  her  veins. 

In  a  few  minutes  she  was  driving  through  the  busy 
streets  to  the  man's  chambers ;  in  a  few  minutes  more 
she  reached  them.  She  mounted  the  stairs.  She  had 
no  need  to  ring,  as  the  outer  door  stood  open.  She 
entered.  Called : 

"  Roland,  are  you  here?" 

There  was  no  reply.  She  crossed  the  hall  and  went 
into  the  sitting-room.  There  on  the  floor  lay  Roland 
Thome  with  a  revolver  bullet  through  his  head. 


CHAPTER  II 

SUCH  were  the  memories  that  overwhelmed 
Clementina  Wing  as  she  sat  grim  and  lonely 
by  the  fire. 

In  the  tragedy  the  girl  Clementina  perished,  and 
from  her  ashes  arose  the  phoenix  of  dingy  plumage 
who  had  developed  into  the  Clementina  of  to-day. 
As  soon  as  she  could  envisage  life  again,  she  plunged 
into  the  strenuous  art-world  of  Paris,  living  solitary, 
morose,  and  heedless  of  external  things.  The  joyous- 
ness  of  the  light-hearted  crowd  into  which  she  was 
thrown  jarred  upon  her.  It  was  like  Bacchanalian 
revelry  at  a  funeral.  She  made  no  friends.  Good- 
natured  importunates  she  drove  away  with  rough 
usage.  The  pairs  of  young  men  and  maidens  who 
flaunted  their  foolish  happiness  in  places  of  public 
resort  she  regarded  with  misanthropic  eye.  She  hated 
them — at  one-and-twenty — because  they  were  fools; 
because  they  deluded  themselves  into  the  belief  that 
the  world  was  rose  and  blue  and  gold,  whereas  she, 
of  her  own  bitter  knowledge,  knew  it  to  be  drab. 
And  from  a  drab  world  what  was  there  more  vain 
than  the  attempt  to  extract  colour?  Beauty  left  her 
unmoved  because  it  had  no  basis  in  actuality.  The 
dainty  rags  in  which  she  had  been  accustomed  to  garb 
herself  she  threw  aside  with  contempt.  Sackcloth  was 
the  only  wear. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  Clementina  at  this 
period  was  young,  and  that  it  is  only  given  to  youth 
to  plumb  the  depths  of  existence.  She  was  young, 
strong-fibred,  desperately  conscious  of  herself.  She 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA       15 

had  left  her  home  rejecting  sympathy.  To  no  one 
could  she  exhibit  the  torture  of  her  soul;  to  no  one 
could  she  confess  the  remorse  and  shame  that  con- 
sumed her.  She  was  a  failure  in  essentials.  She  had 
failed  the  man  in  his  hour  of  need.  She  had  let  him 
go  forth  to  his  death.  She,  Clementina  Wing,  was  a 
failure.  She,  Clementina  Wing,  was  the  world. 
Therefore  was  the  world  a  failure.  She  saw  life  drab. 
Her  vision  was  infallible.  Therefore  life  was  drab. 
Syllogisms,  with  the  eternal  fallacy  of  youth  in  their 
minor  premises.  Work  saved  her  reason.  She  went 
at  it  feverishly,  indefatigably,  unremittingly,  as  only 
a  woman  can — and  only  a  woman  who  has  lost  sense 
of  values.  Her  talent  was  great — in  those  days  she 
did  not  scout  the  suggestion  of  genius — and  by  her 
indomitable  pains  she  acquired  the  marvellous  tech- 
nique which  had  brought  her  fame.  The  years 
slipped  away.  Suddenly  she  awakened.  A  picture 
exhibited  in  the  Salon  obtained  for  her  a  gold  medal, 
which  pleased  her  mightily.  She  was  not  as  dead 
as  she  had  fancied,  having  still  the  power  to  feel  the 
thrill  of  triumph.  Money  much  more  than  would 
satisfy  her  modest  wants  jingled  in  her  pockets  with 
a  jocund  sound.  Folks  whom  she  had  kept  snarlingly 
at  bay  whispered  honeyed  flattery  in  her  ears.  Phil- 
osophy, which  (of  a  bitter  nature)  she  had  cultivated 
during  her  period  of  darkness,  enabled  her  to  estimate 
the  flattery  at  its  true  value;  but  no  philosophy  in 
the  world  could  do  away  with  the  sweetness  of  it. 
So  it  came  to  pass  that  on  her  pleasant  road  to  success, 
Clementina  realised  that  there  was  such  a  thing  as 
light  and  shade  in  life  as  well  as  in  pictures.  But 
though  she  came  out  of  the  underworld  a  different 
woman  from  the  one  who  had  sojourned  there,  she 
was  still  a  far  more  different  woman  from  the  girl 
who  had  flung  herself  into  it  headlong.  She  emerged 


1 6       THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

cynical,  rough,  dictatorial,  eccentric  in  speech,  habits, 
and  attire.  As  she  had  emancipated  herself  from  the 
gloom  of  remorse  and  self-torture,  so  did  she  emanci- 
pate herself  from  convention.  Youth  had  flown  early, 
and  with  it  the  freshness  that  had  given  charm  to 
her  young  face.  Lines  had  come,  bones  had  set,  the 
mouth  had  hardened.  She  had  lost  the  trick  of 
personal  adornment.  Years  of  loose  and  casual  cor- 
seting had  ruined  her  figure.  Even  were  she  to  preen 
and  primp  herself,  what  man  would  look  at  her  with 
favour?  As  for  women,  she  let  them  go  hang.  She 
was  always  impatient  of  the  weaknesses,  frailties, 
and  vanities  of  her  own  sex,  especially  when  they 
were  marked  by  an  outer  show  of  strength.  The  help- 
less she  had  been  known  to  take  to  her  bosom  as  she 
would  have  taken  a  wounded  bird — but  her  sex  as  a 
whole  attracted  her  but  little.  Women  could  go  hang, 
because  she  did  not  want  them.  Men  could  go  hang 
likewise,  because  they  did  not  want  her.  Thus  dis- 
missing from  her  horizon  all  the  human  race,  she 
found  compensation  in  the  freedom  so  acquired.  If 
she  chose  to  run  bareheaded  and  slipshod  into  the 
King's  Road  and  come  back  with  a  lump  of  beef 
wrapped  in  a  bloodstained  bit  of  newspaper  (as  her 
acquaintance,  Mrs.  Venables,  had  caught  her  doing — 
"  My  dear,  you  never  saw  such  an  appalling  sight  in 
your  life,"  she  said  when  reporting  the  incident,  "  and 
she  had  the  impudence  to  make  me  shake  hands  with 
her — and  the  hand,  my  dear,  in  which  she  had  been 
holding  the  beef") — if  she  chose  to  do  this,  what 
mattered  it  to  any  one  of  God's  creatures,  save  per- 
haps Mrs.  Venables's  glove-maker  to  whom  it  was 
an  advantage?  Her  servant  had  a  bad  cold,  time — 
the  morning  light  was  precious — and  the  putting  on 
of  hat  and  boots  a  retarding  vanity.  If  she  chose 
to  bring  in  a  shivering  ragamuffin  from  the  streets 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA       17 

and  warm  him  before  the  fire  and  stuff  him  with  the 
tomato  sandwiches  and  plum-cake  set  out  for  a  vis- 
itor's tea,  who  could  say  her  nay?  The  visitor  in  re- 
volt against  the  sight  and  smell  of  the  ragamuffin, 
could  get  up  and  depart.  It  was  a  matter  of  no  con- 
cern to  Clementina.  Eventually  folks  recognised 
Clementina's  eccentricity,  classed  it  in  the  established 
order  of  things,  ceased  to  regard  it — just  as  dwellers 
by  a  cataract  lose  the  sound  of  the  thunder,  and  as  a 
human  wife  ceases  to  be  conscious  of  the  wart  on  her 
husband's  nose.  To  this  enviable  height  of  freedom 
had  Clementina  risen. 

She  sat  by  the  fire,  overwhelmed  by  memories. 
They  had  been  conjured  up  by  the  girl  with  the  terror 
at  the  back  of  her  eyes;  but  their  mass  was  no  longer 
crushing.  They  came  over  her  like  a  weightless  grey 
cloud  that  had  arisen  from  some  remote  past  with 
which  she  had  no  concern.  She  had  grown  to  look 
upon  the  tragedy  impersonally,  as  though  it  were  a 
melodramatic  tale  written  by  a  young  and  inexperi- 
enced writer,  in  which  the  characters  were  overdrawn 
and  untrue  to  life.  The  reading  of  the  tale  left  her 
with  the  impression  that  Roland  Thorne  was  an  un- 
principled weakling,  Clementina  Wing  an  hysterical 
little  fool. 

Presently  she  rose,  rubbed  her  face  hard  with  both 
hands,  a  proceeding  which  had  the  effect  of  spreading 
the  paint  smudge  into  a  bright  gamboge  over  her 
cheeks,  pushed  the  easel  aside,  and,  taking  down 
"  Tristram  Shandy  "  from  her  shelves,  read  the  story 
of  the  King  of  Bohemia  and  his  Seven  Castles,  by 
way  of  a  change  of  fiction,  till  her  maid  summoned 
her  to  her  solitary  dinner. 

Early  the  next  morning,  as  soon  as  she  had  entered 
the  studio  and  had  begun  to  set  her  palette,  prepara- 
tory to  the  day's  work,  Tommy  Burgrave  appeared 


1 8       THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

on  the  gallery,  with  a  "  Hullo,  Qementina !  "  and  ran 
down  the  spiral  staircase.  Clementina  paused  with  a 
paint  tube  in  her  hand. 

"  Look,  my  young  friend,  you  don't  live  here,  you 
know,"  she  said  coolly. 

"  I'll  clear  out  in  half  a  second,"  he  replied,  smiling-. 
"  I'm  bringing  you  news.  You  ought  to  be  very 
grateful  to  me.  I've  got  you  a  commission." 

"  Who's  the  fool  ?  "  asked  Clementina, 

"  It  isn't  a  fool,"  said  Tommy,  buttoning  the  belt 
of  his  Norfolk  jacket,  as  if  to  brace  himself  to  the 
encounter.  "It's  my  uncle." 

"  Lord  save  us !  "  said  Clementina. 

"  I  thought  I  would  give  you  a  surprise,"  said 
Tommy. 

Clementina  shrugged  her  shoulders  and  went  on 
squeezing  paint  out  of  tubes. 

"  He  must  have  softening  of  the  brain." 

"Why?" 

"  First  for  wanting  to  have  his  portrait  painted  at 
all,  and  secondly  for  thinking  of  coming  to  me.  Go 
back  and  tell  him  I'm  not  a  caricaturist." 

Tommy  planted  a  painting-stool  in  the  middle  of 
the  floor  and  sat  upon  it,  with  legs  apart. 

"  Let  us  talk  business,  Clementina.  In  the  first 
place,  he  has  nothing  to  do  with  it.  He  doesn't  want 
his  portrait  painted,  bless  you.  It's  the  other  pre- 
historic fossils  he  foregathers  with.  I  met  chunks  of 
them  at  dinner  last  night.  They  belong  to  the  Anthro- 
pological Society,  you  know,  they  fool  around  with 
antediluvian  stones  and  bones  and  bits  of  iron — and 
my  uncle's  president.  They  want  to  have  his  portrait 
to  hang  up  in  the  cave  where  they  meet.  They  were 
talking  about  it  at  my  end  of  the  table.  They  didn't 
know  what  painter  to  go  to,  so  they  consulted  me. 
My  uncle  had  introduced  me  as  an  artist,  you  know, 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA       19 

and  they  looked  on  me  as  a  sort  of  young-  prophet. 
I  asked  them  how  much  they  were  prepared  to  give. 
They  said  about  five  hundred  pounds — they  evidently 
have  a  lot  of  money  to  throw  about — one  of  them,  all 
over  gold  chains  and  rings,  seemed  to  perspire  money, 
looked  like  a  bucket-shop  keeper.  I  think  it's  he  who 
is  presenting  the  Society  with  the  portrait.  Anyway, 
that's  about  your  figure,  so  I  said  there  was  only 
one  person  to  paint  my  uncle  and  that  was  Clemen- 
tina Wing.  It  struck  them  as  a  brilliant  idea,  and 
the  end  of  it  was  that  they  told  my  uncle  and  requested 
me  to  sound  you  on  the  matter.  I've  sounded." 

She  looked  at  his  confident  boyish  face,  and  uttered 
a  grim  sound,  halfway  between  a  laugh  and  a  sniff, 
which  was  her  nearest  approach  to  exhibition  of  mirth, 
and  might  have  betokened  amusement  or  pity  or 
contempt  or  any  two  of  these  taken  together  or  the 
three  combined.  Then  she  turned  away  and,  screw- 
ing up  her  eyes,  looked  out  for  a  few  moments  into 
the  sodden  back  garden. 

"  Did  you  ever  hear  of  a  barber  refusing  to  shave 
a  man  because  he  didn't  like  the  shape  of  his  whis- 
kers?" 

"  Only  one,"  said  Tommy,  "  and  he  cut  the  man's 
throat  from  ear  to  ear  with  the  razor." 

He  laughed  aloud  at  his  own  jest,  and  going  up  to 
the  window  where  Clementina  stood  with  her  back  to 
him,  laid  a  hand  on  her  shoulder. 

"  That  means  you'll  do  it." 

"  Guineas,  not  pounds,"  said  Clementina,  facing 
him.  "  Five  hundred  guineas.  I  couldn't  endure 
Ephraim  Quixtus  for  less." 

"  Leave  it  to  me,  I'll  fix  it  up.  So  long."  He  ran 
up  the  spiral  staircase,  in  high  good-humour.  On  the 
gallery  he  paused  and  leaned  over  the  balustrade. 

"  I  say,  Clementina,  if  the  ugly  young  man  calls 


20       THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

to-day  for  that  pretty  Miss  Etta,  and  you  want  any 
murdering  done,  send  for  me." 

She  looked  up  at  him  smiling  down  upon  her,  gay 
and  handsome,  so  rich  in  his  springtide,  and  she 
obeyed  a  sudden  impulse. 

"  Come  down,  Tommy." 

When  he  had  descended  she  unhooked  from  the 
wall  over  the  fireplace  a  Delia  Robbia  plaque — a 
child's  white  head  against  a  background  of  yellow  and 
blue — a  cherished  possession — and  thrust  it  into 
Tommy's  arms.  He  stared  at  her,  but  clutched  the 
precious  thing  tight  for  fear  of  dropping  it. 

"  Take  it.  You  can  give  it  as  a  wedding  present  to 
your  wife  when  you  have  one.  I  want  you  to  have  it." 

He  stammered,  overwhelmed  by  her  magnificent  and 
unprecedented  generosity.  He  could  not  accept  the 
plaque.  It  was  too  priceless  a  gift. 

"  That's  why  I  give  it  to  you,  you  silly  young 
idiot,"  she  cried  impatiently.  "  Do  you  think  I'd  give 
you  a  pair  of  embroidered  braces  or  a  hymn-book? 
Take  it  and  go." 

What  Tommy  did  then,  nine  hundred  and  ninety- 
nine  young  men  out  of  a  thousand  would  not  have  done. 
He  held  out  his  hand — "  Rubbish,"  said  Clementina ; 
but  she  held  out  hers — he  gripped  it,  swung  her  to 
him  and  gave  her  a  good,  full,  sounding,  honest  kiss. 
Then,  holding  the  thing  of  beauty  against  his  heart  he 
leaped  up  the  stairs  and  disappeared,  with  an  exultant 
"  Good-bye,"  through  the  door. 

A  dark  flush  rose  on  the  kissed  spot  on  Clementina's 
cheek.  Softness  crept  into  her  hard  eyes.  She  looked 
at  the  vacant  place  on  the  wall  where  the  cherished 
thing  of  beauty  had  hung.  By  some  queer  optical 
illusion  it  appeared  even  brighter  than  before. 

Tommy,  being  a  young  man  of  energy  and  enthusi- 
asm with  modern  notions  as  to  the  reckoning  of  time, 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA       21 

rushed  the  Anthropologists,  who  were  accustomed  to 
reckon  time  by  epochs  instead  of  minutes,  oft  their 
leisurely  feet.  His  uncle  had  said  words  of  protest 
at  this  indecent  haste;  "  My  dear  Tommy,  if  you  were 
more  of  a  reflective  human  being  and  less  of  a  whirl- 
wind, it  would  frequently  add  to  your  peace  and  com- 
fort." But  Tommy  triumphed.  Within  a  very  short 
period  everything  was  settled,  the  formal  letters  had 
been  exchanged,  and  Ephraim  Quixtus  found  himself 
paying  a  visit,  in  a  new  character,  to  Clementina 
Wing. 

She  received  him  in  her  prim  little  drawing-room — 
as  prim  and  old-maidish  as  Romney  Place  itself — a 
striking  contrast  to  the  chaotically  equipped  studio 
which,  as  Tommy  declared,  resembled  nothing  so 
much  as  a  show-room  after  a  bargain-sale.  The  furni- 
ture was  the  stiffest  of  Sheraton,  the  innocent  colour 
engravings  of  Tomkins,  Cipriani,  and  Bartolozzi  hung 
round  the  walls,  and  in  a  corner  stood  a  spinning- 
wheel  with  a  bunch  of  flax  on  the  distaff.  The  room 
afforded  Clementina  perpetual  grim  amusement.  Ex- 
cept when  she  received  puzzled  visitors  she  rarely  sat 
in  it  from  one  year's  end  to  the  other. 

"  I  haven't  seen  you  since  the  Deluge,  Ephraim,"  she 
said,  as  he  bent  over  her  hand  in  an  old-fashioned  un- 
English  way.  "  How's  prehistoric  man  getting  on?  " 

"  As  well,"  said  he,  gravely,  "  as  can  be  expected." 

Ephraim  Quixtus,  Ph.D.,  was  a  tall,  gaunt  man  of 
forty,  with  a  sallow  complexion,  raven  black  hair 
thinning  at  the  temples  and  on  the  crown  of  his  head, 
and  great,  mild,  china-blue  eyes.  A  reluctant  mous- 
tache gave  his  face  a  certain  lack  of  finish.  Clemen- 
tina's quick  eye  noted  it  at  once.  She  screwed  up  her 
face  and  watched  him. 

"  I  could  make  a  much  more  presentable  thing  of 
you  if  you  were  clean  shaven,"  she  said  brusquely. 


22       THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

"  I  couldn't  shave  off  my  moustache." 

"Why  not?" 

He  started  in  alarm. 

"  I  think  the  Society  would  prefer  to  have  their 
President  in  the  guise  in  which  he  presided  over  them." 

"  Umph !  "  said  Clementina.  She  looked  at  him 
again,  and  with  a  touch  of  irony;  "  Perhaps  it's  just 
as  well.  Sit  down." 

"  Thank  you,"  said  Quixtus,  seating  himself  on  one 

of  the  stiff  Sheraton  chairs.     And  then,  courteously: 

'  You  have  travelled  far  since  we  last  met,  Clementina. 

You  are  famous.    I  wonder  what  it  feels  like  to  be  a 

celebrity." 

She  shrugged  her  shoulders.  "  In  my  case  it  feels 
like  leading  apes  in  hell.  By  the  way,  when  did  I 
last  see  you." 

"  It  was  at  poor  Angela's  funeral,  five  years  ago." 

"  So  it  was,"  said  Clementina. 

There  was  a  short  silence.  Angela  was  his  dead 
wife  and  her  distant  relation. 

"  What  has  become  of  Will  Hammersley  ? "  she 
asked  suddenly.  "  He  has  given  up  writing  to  me." 

"  Still  in  Shanghai,  I  think.  He  went  out,  you 
know,  to  take  over  the  China  branch  of  his  firm — just 
before  Angela's  death,  wasn't  it?  It's  a  couple  of 
years  or  more  since  I  have  heard  from  him." 

"That's  strange;  he  was  an  intimate  friend  of 
yours,"  said  Clementina. 

"  The  only  intimate  friend  I've  ever  had  in  my  life. 
We  were  at  school  and  at  Cambridge  together.  Some- 
how, although  I  have  many  acquaintances  and,  so 
to  speak,  friends,  yet  I've  never  formed  the  intimacies 
that  most  men  have.  I  suppose,"  he  added,  with  a 
sweet  smile,  "  it's  because  I'm  rather  a  dry  stick." 

'  You're  ten  years  older  than  your  age,"  said  Clem- 
entina, frankly.  "  You  want  shaking  up.  It's  a  pity 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA       23 

Will  Hammersley  isn't  here.  He  used  to  do  you  a 
lot  of  good." 

"  I'm  glad  you  think  so  much  of  Hammersley,"  said 
Quixtus. 

"I  don't  think  much  of  most  people,  do  I?"  she 
said.  "  But  Hammersley  was  a  friend  in  need.  He 
was  to  me,  at  any  rate." 

"Are  you  still  fond  of  Sterne?"  he  asked.  "I 
think  you  are  4:he  only  woman  wTho  ever  was." 

She  nodded.     "  Why  do  you  ask?  " 

"  I  was  thinking,"  he  said,  in  his  quiet,  courtly 
way,  "  that  we  have  many  bonds  of  sympathy,  after 
all;  Angela,  Hammersley,  Sterne,  and  my  scapegrace 
nephew,  Tommy." 

"  Tommy  is  a  good  boy,"  said  Clementina,  "  and 
he'll  learn  to  paint  some  day." 

"  I  must  thank  you  for  your  very  great  kindness  to 
him." 

"  Bosh !  "  said  Clementina. 

"  It's  a  great  thing  for  a  young  fellow — wild  and 
impulsive  like  Tommy — to  have  a  good  friend  in  a 
woman  older  than  himself." 

"If  you  think,  my  good  man,"  snapped  Clementina, 
reverting  to  her  ordinary  manner,  "  that  I  look  after 
his  morals,  you  are  very  much  mistaken.  What  has  it 
got  to  do  with  me  if  he  kisses  models  and  takes  them 
out  to  dinner  in  Soho?  " 

The  lingering  Eve  in  her  resented  the  suggestion  of 
a  maternal  attitude  towards  the  boy.  After  all,  she 
was  not  five-and-fifty;  she  was  younger,  five  years 
younger  than  the  stick  of  an  uncle  who  was  talking 
to  her  as  if  he  had  stepped  out  of  the  pages  of  a 
Sunday-school  prize. 

"  He  never  tells  me  of  the  models,"  replied  Quixtus, 
"  and  I'm  very  glad  he  tells  you.  It  shows  there  is 
no  harm  in  it." 


24       THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

"  Let  us  talk  sense,"  said  Clementina,  "  and  not 
waste  time.  You've  come  to  me  to  have  your  portrait 
painted.  I've  been  looking  at  you.  I  think  a  half- 
length,  sitting  down,  would  be  the  best — unless  you 
want  to  stand  up  in  evening-dress  behind  a  table,  with 
presidential  gold  chains  and  badges  of  office  and  ham- 
mers and  water-bottles " 

"  Heaven  forbid!  "cried  Quixtus,  who  was  as  mod- 
est a  man  as  ever  stepped.  "  What  you  suggest  will 
quite  do." 

"  I  suppose  you  will  wear  that  frock-coat  and  turn- 
down collar?  Don't  you  ever  wear  a  narrow  black 
tie?" 

"  My  dear  Clementina,"  he  cried  horrified,  "  I  may 
not  be  the  latest  thing  in  dandyism,  but  I've  no 
desire  to  look  like  a  Scotch  deacon  in  his  Sunday 
clothes." 

"  Vanity  again,"  said  Clementina.  "  I  could  have 
got  something  much  better  out  of  you  in  a  narrow 
black  tie.  Still,  I  daresay  I'll  manage — though  what 
your  bone-digging  friends  want  with  a  portrait  of  you 
at  all  for,  I'm  blest  if  I  can  understand." 

With  which  gracious  remark  she  dismissed  him, 
after  having  arranged  a  date  for  the  first  sitting. 

"  A  poor  creature,"  muttered  Clementina,  when  the 
door  closed  behind  him. 

The  poor  creature,  however,  walked  smartly  home- 
wards through  the  murky  November  evening,  perfectly 
contented  with  God  and  man — even  with  Clementina 
herself.  In  this  well-ordered  world,  even  the  tongue 
of  an  eccentric  woman  must  serve  some  divine  purpose. 
He  mused  whimsically  on  the  purpose.  Well,  at  any 
rate,  she  belonged  to  a  dear  and  regretted  past,  which 
without  throwing  an  absolute  glamour  around  Clem- 
entina still  shed  upon  her  its  softening  rays.  His 
thoughts  were  peculiarly  retrospective  this  evening. 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA       23 

It  was  a  Tuesday,  and  his  Tuesday  nights  for  some 
years  had  been  devoted  to  a  secret  and  sacred  gather- 
ing of  pale  ghosts.  His  Tuesday  nights  were  mysteries 
to  all  his  friends.  When  pressed  for  the  reason  of  this 
perennial  weekly  engagement,  he  would  say  vaguely : 
"  It's  a  club  to  which  I  belong."  But  what  was  the 
nature  of  the  club,  what  the  grim  and  ghastly  penalty 
if  he  skipped  a  meeting,  those  were  questions  which 
he  left,  with  a  certain  innocent  mirth,  to  the  con- 
jecture of  the  curious. 

The  evening  was  fine,  with  a  touch  of  shrewdness 
in  the  air.  He  found  himself  in  the  exhilarated  frame 
of  mind  which  is  consonant  with  brisk  walking.  He 
look  at  his  watch.  He  could  easily  reach  Russell 
Square  by  seven  o'clock.  He  timed  his  walk  exactly. 
It  was  five  minutes  to  seven  when  he  let  himself  in 
by  his  latchkey.  The  parlour-maid,  emerging  from  the 
dining-room,  met  him  in  the  hall  and  helped  him  off 
with  his  coat. 

"  The  gentlemen  have  come,  sir." 

"  Dear,  dear,"  said  Quixtus,  self-reproachfully. 

"  They're  before  their  time.  It  isn't  seven  yet,  sir," 
said  the  parlour-maid,  flinging  the  blame  upon  the 
gentlemen.  In  speaking  of  them  she  had  just  the 
slightest  little  supercilious  tilt  of  the  nose. 

Quixtus  waited  until  she  had  retired,  then,  drawing 
something  from  his  own  pocket,  he  put  something 
into  the  pocket  of  each  of  three  greatcoats  that  hung 
in  the  hall.  After  that  he  ran  upstairs  into  the  draw- 
ing-room. Three  men  rose  to  receive  him. 

"  How  do  you  do,  Huckaby.  So  glad  to  see  you, 
Vandermeer.  My  dear  Billiter." 

He  apologised  for  being  late.  They  murmured  ex- 
cuses for  being  early.  Quixtus  asked  leave  to  wash 
his  hands,  went  out  and  returned  rubbing  them,  as 
though  in  anticipation  of  enjoyment.  Two  of  the 


26       THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

men  standing  in  front  of  the  fire  made  way  for  him. 
He  thrust  them  back  courteously. 

"  No,  no,  I'm  warm.  Been  walking  for  miles.  I've 
not  seen  an  evening  paper.  What's  the  news  ?" 

Quixtus  never  saw  an  evening  paper  on  Tuesdays. 
The  question  was  a  time-honoured  opening  to  the 
kindly  game  he  played  with  his  guests. 

Now  there  is  a  reason  for  most  things,  even  for  a 
parlour-maid's  tilt  of  the  nose.  The  personal  appear- 
ance of  the  guests  would  have  tilted  the  nose  of  any 
self-respecting  parlour-maid  in  Russell  Square.  They 
were  a  strange  trio.  All  were  shabby  and  out-at- 
elbows.  All  wore  the  insecure,  apologetic  collar  which 
is  one  of  the  most  curious  badges  of  the  down-at-heel. 
All  bore  on  their  faces  the  signs  of  privation  and  suf- 
fering; Huckaby,  lantern-jawed,  black-bearded  and 
watery-eyed ;  Vandermeer,  small,  decrepit,  pinched  of 
feature,  with  crisp,  sparse  red  hair  and  the  bright  eyes 
of  a  hungry  wolf;  Billiter,  the  flabby  remains  of  a 
heavily  built  florid  man,  with  a  black  moustache  turning 
grey.  They  were  ghosts  of  the  past,  who  once  a  week 
came  back  to  the  plentiful  earth,  lived  for  a  few  brief 
hours  in  the  land  that  had  been  their  heritage,  talked 
of  the  things  they  had  once  loved,  and  went  forth  (so 
Quixtus  hoped)  cheered  and  comforted  for  their  next 
week's  wandering  on  the  banks  of  Acheron.  Once  a 
week  they  sat  at  a  friend's  table  and  ate  generous 
food,  drank  generous  wine,  and  accepted  help  from  a 
friend's  generous  hand.  Help  they  all  needed,  and 
like  desperate  men  would  snatch  it  from  any  hand  held 
out  to  them.  Huckaby  had  been  a  successful  coach  at 
Cambridge;  Vandermeer,  who  had  forsaken  early  in 
life  a  banking  office  for  the  Temple  of  Literary  Fame, 
had  starved  for  years  on  free-lance  journalism ;  Billi- 
ter, of  Rugby  and  Oxford,  had  run  through  a  fortune. 
All  waste  products  of  the  world's  factory.  Among 


the  many  things  they  had  in  common  was  an  urir 
quenchable  thirst,  which  they  dissimulated  in  Russell 
Square ;  but  they  made  up  for.  it  by  patronising  their 
host.  When  a  beneficiary  is  humble  he  is  either  deserv- 
ing or  has  touched  the  lowest  depths  of  degradation. 

Quixtus  presided  happily  at  the  meal.  With 
strangers  he  was  shy  and  diffident ;  but  here  he  was  at 
his  ease,  among  old  friends  none  the  less  valued  be- 
cause they  had  fallen  by  the  wayside.  Into  the  reason 
of  their  fall  it  did  not  concern  him  to  inquire.  All 
that  mattered  was  their  obvious  affection  and  the 
obvious  brightness  that  fortune  had  enabled  him  to 
shed  on  their  lives. 

"  I  wonder,"  said  he,  with  one  of  his  sudden  smiles, 
"  I  wonder  if  you  fellows  know  how  I  prize  these 
evenings  of  ours." 

"  They're  Attic  Symposia,"  said  Huckaby. 

"  I've  been  thinking  of  a  series  of  articles  on  them, 
after  the  manner  of  the  Nodes  Ambrosiana"  said 
Vandermeer. 

"  They  would  quite  bear  it,"  Huckaby  agreed.  "  I 
think  we  get  better  talk  here  than  anywhere  else  I 
know.  I'm  a  sometime  Fellow  of  Corpus  Christi 
College,  Cambridge," — he  rolled  out  the  alliterative 
phrase  with  great  sonority — "  and  I  know  the  talk  in 
the  Combination  Room;  but  it's  pedantic — pedantic. 
Not  ripe  and  mellow  like  ours." 

"  I'm  not  a  brainy  chap  like  you  others,"  said 
Billiter,  wiping  his  dragoon's  moustache,  "  but  I  like 
to  have  my  mind  improved,  now  and  then." 

"  Do  you  know  the  Nodes,  Huckaby  ?"  asked  Quix- 
tus. "  Of  course  you  do.  What  do  you  think  of 
them?" 

"  I  suppose  you  like  them,"  replied  Huckaby,  "  be- 
cause you  are  an  essentially  scientific  and  not  a  literary 
man.  But  I  think  them  dull." 


28       THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

"  I  don't  call  them  dull,"  Quixtus  argued,  "  but  to 
my  mind  they're  pretentious.  I  don't  like  their  sham 
heartiness,  their  slap-on-the-back  and  how-are-you-old- 
fellow  tone,  their  impossible  Pantagruelian  ban- 
quets  " 

The  hungry  wolf's  face  of  Vandermeer  lit  up. 
"  That's  what  I  like  about  them — the  capons — the 
pies — the  cockaleeky — the  haggises 

"  I  remember  a  supper-party  at  Oxford,"  said  Billi- 
ter,  "  when  there  was  a  haggis,  and  one  chap  who 
was  awfully  tight  insisted  that  a  haggis  ought  to  be 
turned  like  an  omelette  or  tossed  like  a  pancake.  He 
tossed  it.  My  God !  You  never  saw  such  a  thing  in 
your  life !  " 

So  they  all  talked  according  to  the  several  necessities 
of  their  natures,  and  at  last  Quixtus  informed  his 
guests  that  he  was  to  sit  for  his  portrait  to  Miss 
Clementina  Wing. 

"  I  believe  she  is  really  quite  capable,"  said  Huckaby, 
judicially,  stroking  his  straggling  beard. 

"  I  know  her,"  cried  Vandermeer.  "  A  most  charm- 
ing woman." 

Quixtus  raised  his  eyebrows. 

"  I'm  glad  to  hear  you  say  so,"  said  he.  "She  is  a 
sort  of  distant  connection  of  mine  by  marriage." 

"  I  interviewed  her,"  said  Vandermeer. 

"  Good  Lord !  "  The  exclamation  on  the  part  of 
Quixtus  was  inaudible. 

"  I  was  doing  a  series  of  articles — very  important 
articles,"  said  Vandermeer,  with  an  assertive  glance 
around  the  table,  "  on  Women  Workers  of  To-day, 
and  of  course  Miss  Clementina  Wing  came  into  it.  I 
called  and  put  the  matter  before  her." 

He  paused  dramatically. 

"  And  then  ?  "  asked  Quixtus,  amused. 

"  We  went  out  to  lunch  in  a  restaurant  and  she 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA       29 

gave  me  all  the  material  necessary  for  my  article.  A 
most  charming  woman,  who  I  think  will  do  you  jus- 
tice, Quixtus." 

When  his  friends  had  gone,  each,  by  the  way,  diving 
furtive  and  searching  hands  into  their  great-coat 
pockets,  as  soon  as  they  had  been  helped  into  these 
garments  by  the  butler — and  here,  by  the  way  also, 
be  it  stated  that,  no  matter  how  sultry  the  breath  of 
summer  or  how  frigid  that  of  fortune,  they  never 
failed  to  bring  overcoats  to  hang,  for  all  the  world 
like  children's  stockings  for  Santa  Claus,  on  the  famil- 
iar pegs — when  his  friends  were  gone,  Quixtus,  who 
had  an  elementary  sense  of  humour,  failed  entirely  to 
see  an  expansive  and  notoriety-seeking  Clementina 
lunching  tete-a-tete  at  the  Carlton  or  the  Savoy  with 
Theodore  Vandermeer.  In  point  of  fact,  he  fell  asleep 
smiling  at  the  picture. 

The  next  day,  while  he  was  at  breakfast — he  break- 
fasted rather  late — Tommy  Burgrave  was  announced. 
Tommy,  who  had  already  eaten  with  the  appetite  of 
youth,  immediately  after  his  cold  bath,  declined  to 
join  his  uncle  in  a  meal,  but  for  the  sake  of  sociability 
trifled  with  porridge,  kidneys,  cold  ham,  hot  rolls  and 
marmalade,  while  Quixtus  feasted  on  a  soft-boiled 
egg  and  a  piece  of  dry  toast.  When  his  barmecide 
meal  was  over,  Tommy  came  to  the  business  of  the 
day.  For  some  inexplicable,  unconjecturable  reason 
his  monthly  allowance  had  gone,  disappeared,  vanished 
into  the  Ewigkeit.  What  in  the  world  was  he  to  do  ? 

Now  it  must  be  explained  that  Tommy  Burgrave 
was  an  orphan,  the  son  of  Ephraim  Quixtus's  only 
sister,  and  his  whole  personal  estate  a  sum  of  money 
invested  in  a  mortgage  which  brought  him  in  fifty 
pounds  a  year.  On  fifty  pounds  a  year  a  young  man 
cannot  lead  the  plenteous  life  as  far  as  food  and  rai- 
ment are  concerned,  rent  a  studio  (even  though  it  be  a 


30       THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

converted  first-floor  back,  as  Tommy's  was)  and  a 
bedroom  in  Romney  Place,  travel  (even  on  a  bicycle, 
as  Tommy  did)  about  England,  and  entertain  ladies 
to  dinner  at  restaurants — even  though  the  ladies  may 
be  only  models,  and  the  restaurants  in  Soho.  He  must 
have  other  financial  support.  This  other  financial  sup- 
port came  to  him  in  the  guise  of  a  generous  allowance 
from  his  uncle.  But  as  the  generosity  of  his  instincts 
— and  who  in  the  world  would  be  a  cynic,  animated 
blight,  curmudgeon  enough  to  check  the  generous  in- 
stincts of  youth? — as,  I  say,  the  generosity  of  his 
instincts  outran  the  generosity  of  his  allowance,  tow- 
ards the  end  of  every  month  Tommy  found  himself 
in  a  most  naturally  inexplicable  position.  At  the  end 
of  the  month,  therefore,  Tommy  came  to  Russell 
Square  and  trifled  with  porridge,  kidneys,  cold  ham, 
hot  rolls  and  marmalade,  while  his  uncle  feasted  on  a 
soft-boiled  egg  and  a  piece  of  dried  toast,  and,  at 
the  end  of  his  barmecide  feast,  came  to  business. 

On  the  satisfactory  conclusion  thereof  (and  it  had 
never  been  known  to  be  otherwise)  Tommy  lit  a  cigar 
— he  liked  his  uncle's  cigars. 

"  Well,"  said  he,  "  what  do  you  think  of  Clemen- 
tina?" 

"  I  think,"  said  Quixtus,  with  a  faint  luminosity 
lighting  his  china-blue  eyes,  "  I  think  that  Clementina, 
being  an  artist,  is  a  problem.  But  if  she  weren't  an 
artist  and  in  a  different  class  of  life,  she  would  be  a 
model  old  family  servant  in  a  great  house  in  which 
the  family,  by  no  chance  whatever,  resided." 

Tommy  laughed.  "  It  seemed  tremendously  funny 
to  bring  you  two  together." 

Quixtus  smiled  indulgently.  "  So  it  was  a  practical 
joke  on  your  part  ?  " 

"  Oh,  no !"  cried  Tommy,  flaring  up.  "  You  mustn't 
think  that.  There's  only  one  painter  living  who  has 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA       31 

her  power — and  I'm  one  of  the  people  who  know  it—- 
and I  wanted  her  to  paint  you.  Besides,  she  is  a 
thorough  good  sort — through  and  through." 

"  My  dear  boy,  I  was  only  jesting,"  said  Quixtus, 
touched  by  his  earnestness.  "  I  know  that  not  only 
are  you  a  devotee — and  very  rightly  so — of  Clemen- 
tina— but  that  she  is  a  very  great  painter." 

"  All  the  same,"  said  Tommy,  with  a  twinkle  in  his 
eyes,  "  I'm  afraid  that  you're  in  for  an  awful  time." 

"  I'm  afraid  so,  too,"  said  Quixtus,  whimsically, 
"  but  I'll  get  through  it  somehow." 

He  did  get  through  it ;  but  it  was  only  "  somehow." 
This  quiet,  courtly,  dreamy  gentleman  irritated  Clem- 
entina as  he  had  irritated  her  years  ago.  He  was  a 
learned  man;  that  went  without  saying;  but  he  was 
a  fool  all  the  same,  and  Clementina  had  not  trained 
herself  to  suffer  fools  gladly.  The  portrait  became 
her  despair.  The  man  had  no  character.  There  was 
nothing  beneath  the  surface  of  those  china-blue  eyes. 
She  was  afraid,  she  said,  of  getting  on  the  canvas  the 
portrait  of  a  congenital  idiot.  His  attitude  towards 
life — the  dilettante  attitude  which  she  as  a  worker 
despised — made  her  impatient.  By  profession  he  was 
a  solicitor,  head  of  the  old-fashioned  firm  of  Quixtus 
and  Son;  but,  on  his  open  avowal,  he  neglected 
the  business,  leaving  it  all  in  the  hands  of  his 
partner. 

"  He'll  do  you,  sure  as  a  gun,"  said  Clementina. 

Quixtus  smiled.  "  My  father  trusted  him  implicitly, 
and  so  do  I." 

"  A  man  or  a  woman's  a  fool  to  trust  anybody," 
said  Clementina. 

"  I've  trusted  everybody  around  me  all  my  life,  and 
no  one  has  done  me  any  harm,  and  therefore  I'm  a 
happy  man." 

"  Rubbish,"  said  Clementina.     "  Any  fraud  gets  the 


32       THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

better  of  you.  What  about  your  German  friend 
Tommy  was  telling  me  of  ?  " 

This  was  a  sore  point.  A  most  innocent,  spectacled, 
bearded,  but  obviously  poverty-stricken  German  had 
called  on  him  a  few  weeks  before  with  a  collection  of 
flint  instruments  for  sale,  which  he  alleged  to  have 
come  from  the  valley  of  the  Weser,  near  Hameln. 
They  were  of  shapes  and  peculiarities  which  he  had 
not  met  with  before,  and,  after  a  cursory  and  admiring 
examination,  he  had  given  the  starving  Teuton  twice 
as  much  as  he  had  asked  for  the  collection,  and  sent 
him  on  his  way  rejoicing.  With  a  brother  palaeontolo- 
gist summoned  in  haste  he  had  proceeded  to  a  minute 
scrutiny  of  his  treasures.  They  were  impudent  for- 
geries. 

"  I  told  Tommy  in  confidence.  He  ought  not  tc 
have  repeated  the  story,"  he  said,  with  dignity. 

"  Which  shows,"  said  Clementina,  pausing  so  as  to 
make  her  point  and  an  important  brush-stroke — 
"  which  shows  that  you  can't  even  trust  Tommy." 

On  another  occasion  he  referred  to  Vandermeer's 
famous  interview. 

"  You  know  a  friend  of  mine,  Vandermeer,"  said  he. 

Clementina  shook  her  head. 

"  Never  heard  the  name." 

He  explained.  Vandermeer  was  a  journalist.  He 
had  interviewed  her  and  lunched  with  her  at  a  res- 
taurant. 

Clementina  could  not  remember.  At  last  her  knitted 
brow  cleared. 

"  Good  lord,  do  you  mean  a  half-starved,  foxy-faced 
man  with  his  toes  through  his  boots  ?  " 

"  The  portrait  is  unflattering,"  said  he,  "  but  I'm 
afraid  there's  a  kind  of  resemblance." 

"  He  looked  so  hungry  and  was  so  hungry — he  told 
me — that  I  took  him  to  the  ham-and-beef  shop  round 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA       33 

the  corner  and  staffed  his  head  with  copy  while  he 
stuffed  himself  with  ham  and  beef.  To  say  that  he 
lunched  with  me  at  a  restaurant  is  infernal  impu- 
dence." 

"  Poor  fellow,"  said  Quixtus.  "  He  has  to  live  rather 
fatly  in  imagination  so  as  to  make  up  for  the  meagre- 
ness  of  his  living  in  reality.  It's  only  human  nature." 

"  Bah,"  said  Clementina,  "  I  believe  you'd  find 
human  nature  in  the  devil." 

Quixtus  smiled  one  of  his  sweet  smiles. 

"  I  find  it  in  you,  Clementina,"  he  said. 

Thus  it  may  be  perceived  that  the  sittings  were  not 
marked  by  the  usual  amenities  of  the  studio.  The 
natures  of  the  two  were  antagonistic.  He  shrank 
from  her  downrightness ;  she  disdained  his  ineffec- 
tuality.  Each  bore  with  the  other  for  the  sake  of 
past  associations;  but  each  drew  a  breath  of  relief 
when  freed  from  the  presence  of  the  other.  Although 
he  was  a  man  of  wide  culture  beyond  the  bounds  of 
his  own  particular  subject,  and  could  talk  well  in  a 
half-humorous,  half-pedantic  manner,  her  influence 
often  kept  him  as  dumb  as  a  mummy.  This  irritated 
Clementina  still  further.  She  wanted  him  to  talk,  to 
show  some  animation,  so  that  she  could  seize  upon 
something  to  put  upon  the  dismaying  canvas.  She 
talked  nonsense,  in  order  to  stimulate  him. 

"  To  live  in  the  past  as  you  do  without  any  regard 
for  the  present  is  as  worthless  as  to  go  to  bed  in  a 
darkened  room  and  stay  there  for  the  rest  of  your 
life.  It's  the  existence  of  a  mole,  not  of  a  man." 

He  indicated,  with  a  wave  of  the  hand,  a  Siennese 
predclla  on  the  wall.  "  You  go  to  the  past." 

"  For  its  lessons,"  said  Clementina.  "Because  the 
Old  Masters  can  teach  me  things.  How  on  earth  do 
you  think  I  should  be  able  to  paint  you  if  it  hadn't 
been  for  Velasquez?  To  say  nothing  of  the  aesthetic 


34       THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

side.  But  you  only  go  to  the  past  to  satisfy  an  idle 
curiosity." 

"  Perhaps  I  do,  perhaps  I  do,"  he  assented,  mildly. 
"  A  knowledge  of  the  process  by  which  a  prehistoric 
lady  fashioned  her  petticoat  out  of  skins  by  means 
of  a  flint  needle  and  reindeer  sinews  would  be  of  no 
value  to  Worth  or  Paquin.  But  it  soothes  me  per- 
sonally to  contemplate  the  intimacies  of  the  toilette 
of  the  prehistoric  lady." 

"  I  call  that  abnormal,"  said  Clementina,  "  and  you 
ought  to  be  ashamed  of  yourself." 

And  that  was  the  end  of  that  conversation. 

Meanwhile,  in  spite  of  her  half-comic  despair,  the 
portrait  progressed.  She  had  seized,  at  any  rate,  the 
man's  air  of  intellectuality,  of  aloofness  from  the 
practical  affairs  of  life.  Unconsciously  she  had  in- 
vested the  face  with  a  spirituality  which  had  eluded 
her  conscious  analysis.  The  artist  had  worked  with 
the  inner  vision,  as  the  artist  always  does  when  he 
produces  a  great  work.  For  the  great  work  of  an 
artist  is  not  that  before  which  he  stands,  and,  sighing, 
says :  "  This  is  fair,  but  how  far  away  from  my 
dreams !  "  That  is  the  popular  fallacy.  The  great 
wrork  is  that  which,  when  he  regards  it  on  completion, 
causes  him  to  say  in  humble  admiration  and  modest 
stupefaction :  "  How  on  earth  did  the  dull  clod  that 
is  I  manage  to  do  it  ?  "  For  he  does  not  know  how 
he  accomplished  it.  When  a  man  is  conscious  of  every 
step  he  takes  in  the  execution  of  a  work  of  art,  he  is 
obeying  the  letter  and  not  the  spirit;  he  is  a  juggler 
with  formulas;  and  formulas,  being  mere  analytical 
results,  have  no  place  in  that  glorious  synthesis  which 
is  creation — either  of  a  world  or  a  flower  or  a  poem. 
Clementina,  to  her  astonishment,  regarded  the  portrait 
of  Ephraim  Quixtus,  and,  like  the  First  Creator  re- 
garding His  work,  saw  that  it  was  good. 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA       35 

"  I  should  never  have  believed  it,"  she  said. 
"  What  ?  "  asked  Quixtus. 

"  That  I  should  have  got  all  this  out  of  you,"  said 
Clementina. 


CHAPTER  III 

WE  have  heard  much  of  a  man  in  the  Land  of 
Uz  whose  name  was  Job.  We  know  that 
he  was  perfect  and  upright,  feared  God, 
and  eschewed  evil;  and  we  are  told  how,  on  a  disas- 
trous afternoon,  messenger  after  messenger  came  to 
him  to  announce  one  calamity  after  the  other,  culmi- 
nating in  the  annihilation  of  his  entire  family,  and 
how  the  final  scorbutic  affliction  came  shortly  after- 
wards, the  anti-climax,  it  must  be  confessed,  of  his 
woes,  which  drove  the  patient  man  to  open  his  mouth 
and  curse  his  day.  Between  Job  and  Dr.  Quixtus  I 
doubt  whether  the  like  avalanche  of  disasters,  Pelion 
on  Ossa  and  Kunchinginja  on  Pelion  of  misfortunes, 
ever  came  thundering  down  on  the  head  of  an  upright 
and  evil-eschewing  human  creature. 

The  tale  of  these  successive  misfortunes  can  only 
be  briefly  narrated ;  for  to  examine  in  detail  the  train 
of  circumstances  which  led  up  to  tftem,  and  the  intri- 
cate nexus  of  human  motive  in  which  they  were 
complicated  would  be  foreign  to  the  purpose  of  this 
chronicle.  Except  passively  or  negatively,  perhaps, 
Quixtus  had  no  hand  in  their  happening.  As  in  the 
case  of  Job,  the  thunderbolts  fell  from  a  cloudless 
sky.  His  moral  character  was  blameless,  his  position 
as  assured,  his  life  as  happy  as  the  patriarch's.  He 
had  done  no  man  harm  all  his  days,  and  he  had  no 
cause  to  fear  evil  from  any  quarter.  A  tithe  or  more 
of  his  goods  he  gave  in  generous  charity;  and  not 
only  did  he  not  proclaim  the  fact  aloud  like  the  Phari- 

36 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA       33 

see,  but  never  mentioned  the  matter  to  himself — for 
the  simple  reason  that  keeping  no  accounts  of  his 
expenditure  he  had  not  the  remotest  notion  of  the 
amount  of  his  eleemosynary  expenses.  You  would 
have  far  to  go  to  meet  a  man  more  free  from  petty- 
mindedness  or  vanity  than  Ephraim  Quixtus.  He  was 
mild,  urbane,  and,  for  all  his  scholarly  reading,  palae- 
olithic knowledge,  and  wide  travel,  singularly  modest. 
If  you  contradicted  him,  instead  of  asserting  himself, 
as  most  men  do,  with  increased  vigour,  he  forthwith 
put  back  to  find,  if  possible,  the  flaw  in  his  own  argu- 
ment. When  complimented  on  his  undoubted  attain- 
ments, he  always  sought  to  depreciate  them.  The 
achievement  of  others,  even  in  his  own  special  depart- 
ment of  learning,  moved  his  generous  admiration. 
Yet  he  had  one  extraordinary  vanity — which  made 
him  fall  short  of  the  perfection  of  his  prototype  in 
the  Land  of  Uz — the  doctorial  title  which  he  possessed 
by  virtue  of  his  Ph.D.  degree  from  the  University  of 
Heidelberg.  Through  signing  his  articles  in  learned 
publications  "  Ephraim  Quixtus,  Ph.D.,"  his  brethren 
among  the  learned  who  rent  him  respectfully  to  pieces 
in  other  learned  publications,  invariably  alluded  to  him 
as  Dr.  Quixtus.  Through  being  thus  styled  by  his 
brethren  both  in  print  and  conversation,  he  began  to 
give  his  name  as  Dr.  Quixtus  to  the  stentorian  func- 
tionary at  the  doors  of  banquets  and  receptions  of 
the  learned,  and  derived  infinite  gratification  from 
hearing  it  loudly  proclaimed  to  all  assembled.  From 
that  to  announcing  himself  as  "Dr.  Quixtus"  to  the 
parlour-maid  or  butler  in  the  homes  of  the  worldly 
was  but  a  step. 

Now  it  may  be  questioned  whether  on  the  rolls 
kept  by  the  Incorporated  Law  Society  there  is  a 
solicitor  who  would  style  himself  Doctor.  It  would 
be  as  foreign  to  the  ordinary  solicitor's  notions  of 


38       THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

professional  propriety  as  to  interview  his  clients  in 
a  surplice.  The  title  does  not  suggest  a  solicitor — 
any  more  than  Oulxtus  himself  did  in  person.  He 
was  a  stranger,  an  anomaly,  a  changeling  in  the  Cor- 
poration. He  ought  never  to  have  been  a  solicitor. 
He  was  a  very  bad  solicitor — and  that  was  what  the 
judge  said,  among  other  things  of  a  devastating 
nature,  when  he  was  giving  evidence  at  a  certain 
memorable  trial,  which  took  place  not  long  after  he 
had  re-entered  the  stormy  horizon  of  Clementina 
Wing,  and  his  portrait  had  been  hung  above  the  presi- 
dential chair  of  the  Anthropological  Society. 

It  is  but  justice  to  say  that  Quixtus  was  a  solicitor 
not  by  choice,  but  by  inheritance  and  filial  affection. 
His  father  had  an  old-fashioned  lucrative  family  prac- 
tice, into  which,  as  it  was  his  father's  earnest  desire, 
his  kindly  nature  allowed  him  to  drift.  When  his 
father  died  suddenly,  almost  as  soon  as  his  articles 
were  completed  and  he  was  admitted  into  partnership, 
he  stared  in  dismay  at  the  prospect  before  him.  He 
could  no  more  draw  up  a  conveyance  of  land,  or 
administer  a  bankrupt  estate,  or  prepare  a  brief  for 
a  barrister,  than  he  could  have  steered  an  Atlantic 
liner  into  New  York  Harbour.  And  he  had  not  the 
faintest  desire  to  know  how  to  draw  up  a  conveyance 
or  administer  an  estate.  Beyond  acquiring  from  text- 
books the  bare  information  requisite  for  the  passing 
©f  his  examinations,  he  had  never  attempted  to  probe 
deeper  into  the  machinery  of  the  law.  His  mind  at- 
tributed far  greater  importance  to  the  sharp  flint 
instruments  wherewith  primitive  men  settled  their 
quarrels  by  whanging  each  other  over  the  head  than 
to  the  miserable  instruments  on  parchment  which 
adjusted  the  sordid  wrangles  of  the  present  genera- 
tion. By  entering  the  profession  he  had  merely  grati- 
fied a  paternal  whim.  There  had  been  a  "  Quixtus 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA       39 

and  Son  "  in  Lincoln's  Inn  for  a  hundred  years,  and 
it  was  the  dearest  wish  of  the  old  man's  heart  that 
"  Quixtus  and  Son  "  should  remain  there  in  scecula 
sceculorum.  While  his  father  was  alive  Ephraim  had 
scarcely  thought  of  this  desirable  continuity.  But  his 
father  dead,  it  behooved  him  to  see  piously  to  its 
establishment 

The  irksome  part  of  the  matter  was  that  he  had 
no  financial  reason  for  proceeding  with  an  abominated 
profession.  As  hunger  drives  the  wolves  abroad, 
according  to  Frangois  Villon,  so  might  hunger  have 
driven  him  from  his  palaeolithic  forest.  But  there 
was  no  chance  of  his  being  hungry.  Not  only  did 
his  father  and  his  mother  each  leave  him  a  comfort- 
able fortune,  but  he  was  the  declared  heir  of  an  uncle, 
his  father's  elder  brother,  who  possessed  large  estates 
in  Devonshire,  and  had  impressed  Ephraim  from  his 
boyhood  up  as  one  in  advanced  and  palsied  old  age. 

Yet  "  Quixtus  and  Son "  had  to  be  carried  on. 
How?  He  consulted  the  confidential  clerk,  Marrable 
who  had  been  in  the  office  since  boyhood.  Marrable 
at  once  suggested  a  solution  of  the  difficulty  which 
almost  caused  Ephraim  to  throw  himself  into  his  arms 
for  joy.  It  was  wonderful !  It  was  immense !  Quix- 
tus welcomed  it  as  Henry  VIII.  welcomed  Cromwell's 
suggestion  for  getting  rid  of  Queen  Katherine.  The 
solution  was  nothing  less  than  that  Ephraim  should 
take  him  into  partnership  on  generous  terms.  The 
deed  of  partnership  was  drawn  up  and  signed,  and 
Quixtus  entered  upon  a  series  of  happy  and  prosperous 
years.  He  attended  the  office  occasionally,  signed 
letters  and  interviewed  old  family  clients,  whom  he 
entertained  with  instructive  though  irrelevant  gossip 
until  they  went  away  comforted.  When  they  insisted 
on  business  advice  instead  of  comfort,  he  rang  the 
bell,  and  Marrable  appeared  like  a  djinn  out  of  a 


40       THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

bottle.  Nothing  could  be  simpler,  nothing  could  work 
more  satisfactorily.  Not  only  did  clients  find  their 
affairs  thoroughly  looked  after,  but  they  were  flat- 
tered at  having  bestowed  upon  them  the  concentrated 
legal  acumen  and  experience  of  the  firm.  You  may 
say  that,  as  a  solicitor,  Quixtus  was  a  humbug;  that 
he  ought  never  to  have  accepted  the  position.  But 
show  me  a  man  who  has  never  done  that  which  he 
ought  not  to  have  done,  and  you  will  show  me  either 
an  irresponsible  idiot  or  an  angel  masquerading  in 
mortal  vesture.  I  have  my  doubts  whether  Job  him- 
self before  his  trials  was  quite  as  perfect  as  he  is  made 
out  to  be.  Quixtus  was  neither  idiot  nor  angel.  At 
the  most  he  was  a  scholarly,  ineffectual  gentleman  of 
comfortable  means,  forced  by  filial  tenderness  into  a 
distasteful  and  bewildering  pursuit.  He  had  neither 
the  hard-heartedness  to  kill  the  one,  nor  the  strength 
of  will  to  devote  himself  to  the  mastery  of  the  other. 
He  compromised,  you  may  say,  with  the  devil.  Well, 
the  devil  is  notoriously  insidious,  and  Quixtus  was 
entirely  unconscious  of  subscribing  to  a  bargain.  At 
any  rate,  the  devil  had  a  hand  in  his  undoing  and 
appointed  a  zealous  agent  of  iniquity  in  the  person  of 
Mr.  Samuel  Marrable. 

When  Quixtus  went  to  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields  one 
morning  and  found,  instead  of  his  partner,  a  letter 
from  him  stating  that  he  had  gone  abroad  and  would 
remain  there  without  an  address  for  an  indefinite  time, 
Quixtus  was  surprised.  When  he  had  summoned  the 
managing  clerk  and  together  they  had  opened  Mar- 
rable's  safe,  both  he  and  the  clerk  were  bewildered; 
and  after  he  had  spent  an  hour  or  two  with  a  chartered 
accountant,  for  whom  he  had  hurriedly  telephoned, 
he  grew  sick  from  horror  and  amazement.  Later  in 
the  day  he  heard  through  the  police  that  a  warrant 
was  out  for  Samuel  Marrable's  arrest.  In  the  course 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA       41 

of  time  he  learned  that  Samuel  Marrable  had  done 
everything  that  a  solicitor  should  not  do.  He  had 
misappropriated  trust- funds;  he  had  made  away  with 
bearer-bonds ;  he  had  falsified  accounts ;  he  had  forged 
transfers;  he  had  speculated  in  wild-cat  concerns;  he 
had  become  the  dupe  of  a  gang  of  company  promoters 
known  throughout  the  City  as  "Gehenna  Unlimited." 
He  had  robbed  the  widow ;  he  had  robbed  the  orphan ; 
he  had  robbed  the  firm;  he  had  robbed  with  impunity 
for  many  years;  but  when,  in  desperation,  he  had 
tried  to  rob  "Gehenna  Unlimited,"  they  were  too  much 
for  him.  So  Samuel  Marrable  had  fled  the  country. 

Thus  fell  the  first  thunderbolt.  Quixtus  saw  the 
fair  repute  of  "Quixtus  and  Son"  shattered  in  an 
instant,  his  own  name  tarnished,  himself — and  this 
was  the  most  cruel  part  of  the  matter — betrayed  and 
fooled  by  the  man  in  whom  he  had  placed  his  bound- 
less trust.  Marrable,  whom  he  had  known  since  he 
was  a  child  of  five ;  with  whom  he  had  gone  to  panto- 
mimes, exhibitions,  and  such  like  junketings  when  he 
was  a  boy;  \vho  had  first  guided  his  reluctant  feet 
through  the  mazes  of  the  law ;  who  had  stood  with  him 
by  his  father's  death-bed;  who  was  bound  to  him  by 
all  the  intimacies  of  a  lifetime;  on  whose  devotion  he 
had  counted  as  unquestioningly  as  a  child  on  his 
mother's  love — Marrable  to  be  a  rogue  and  a  rascal, 
not  a  man  at  his  wit's  end  yielding  to  a  sudden  tempta- 
tion, but  a  deliberate,  systematic  villain — it  was  all 
but  unthinkable.  Yet  here  were  irrefragable  proofs, 
as  the  law  took  its  course.  And  all  through  the  night- 
mare time  that  followed  until  the  trial — for  the  poor 
fugitive  was  soon  hunted  down  and  haled  back  to 
London — when  his  days  were  spent  in  helpless  exam- 
ination of  confusing  figures  and  bewildering  trans- 
actions, the  insoluble  human  problem  was  uppermost 
in  his  mind.  How  could  the  man  have  done  these 


42       THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

things?  Marrable  had  sobbed  over  his  father's  grave 
and  had  put  his  arm  affectionately  round  his  shoulders 
and  led  him  away  to  the  mourning  coach.  Marrable 
had  stood  with  him  by  another  open  grave,  that  of  his 
dead  wife,  and  had  comforted  him  with  affectionate 
sympathy.  To  the  very  end  not  a  sinister  look  had 
appeared  in  his  honest,  capable  eyes.  On  the  very 
day  of  his  flight  he  had  lunched  with  Quixtus  in  the 
Savoy  grill-room.  He  had  laughed  and  jested  and  told 
Quixtus  a  funny  story  or  two.  When  they  parted : 

"  Shall  I  see  you  at  the  office  this  afternoon?  No? 
Well,  good-bye,  Ephraim.  God  bless  you." 

He  had  smiled  and  waved  a  cheery  hand.  How 
could  a  man  shower  upon  another  his  tears,  his  sym- 
pathy, his  laughter,  his  implied  loyalty,  his  blessings, 
and  all  the  time  be  a  treacherous  scoundrel  working 
his  ruin?  All  his  knowledge  of  Prehistoric  Man 
would  not  answer  the  question. 

"  I  wonder  whether  there  are  many  people  in  the 
world  like  Marrable?  "  he  questioned. 

And  from  that  moment  he  began  to  look  at  all  clear- 
eyed,  honest  folk  and  speculate,  in  a  dreary  way, 
whether  they  were  like  Marrable. 

The  family  honour  being  imperilled,  duty  sum- 
moned him  to  an  interview  with  Matthew  Quixtus,  his 
father's  elder  brother,  the  head  of  the  family,  and 
owner  of  a  large  estate  at  Croxton,  in  Devonshire,  and 
other  vast  possessions.  He  paid  him  a  week-end  visit. 
The  old  man,  nearly  ninety,  received  him  with  every 
mark  of  courtesy.  He  went  out  of  his  way  to  pay 
deference  to  him  as  a  man  of  high  position  in  the 
learned  world.  Instead  of  the  "  Mr.  Ephraim," 
which  had  been  his  designation  in  the  house  ever 
since  the  "  Master  Ephraim  "  had  been  dropped  in 
the  dim  past,  it  was  pointedly  as  "  Dr.  Quixtus " 
that  butler  and  coachman  and  the  rest  of  the  house- 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA       43 

hold  heard  him  referred  to.  Quixtus,  who  had  always 
regarded  his  uncle  as  a  fiery  ancient,  hot  with  family 
pride  and  quick  to  quarrel  on  the  point  of  honour, 
was  greatly  relieved  by  his  unexpected  suavity  of 
demeanour.  He  listened  to  his  nephew's  account  of 
the  great  betrayal  with  a  kindly  smile,  and  wasted 
upon  him  bottles  of  the  precious  '54  port  which  the 
butler,  with  appropriate  ritual,  only  brought  up  for 
the  Inner  Brotherhood  of  Dionysus.  On  all  previous 
occasions,  Ephraim,  at  whose  deplorably  uncultivated 
palate  the  old  man  had  shrugged  pitying  shoulders, 
had  been  treated  to  an  unconsidered  vintage  put  upon 
the  table  after  dinner  rather  as  a  convention  than  (in 
the  host's  opinion)  as  a  liquid  fit  for  human  throttle. 
He  was  sympathetic  over  the  disaster  and  alluded  to 
Marrable  in  picturesquely  old-world  terms  of  depre- 
ciation. 

"  It'll  cost  you  a  pretty  penny,  one  way  or  the 
other,"  said  he. 

"  I  shall  have  to  make  good  the  losses.  I  dare  say 
I  can  make  arrangements  extending  over  a  period  of 
years." 

"  Fly  kites,  eh  ?  Well,  I  shan't  live  for  ever.  But 
I'm  not  dead  yet.  By  George,  sir,  no !  "  and  his  poor 
old  hand  shook  pitifully  as  he  raised  his  glass  to  his 
lips.  "  My  grandfather — your  great  grandfather 
lived  to  be  a  hundred  and  four." 

"  It  will  be  a  matter  of  pride  and  delight  to  all  who 
know  you,"  said  Quixtus,  smiling  and  bowing,  glass 
in  hand,  across  the  table,  "  if  you  champion  the  mod- 
ern world  and  surpass  him  in  longevity." 

"  The  property  will  come  in  very  handy,  though, 
won't  it  ?  "  asked  the  old  man. 

"  I  confess,"  said  Quixtus,  "  that,  if  I  pay  the  lia- 
bilities out  of  my  own  resources,  I  may  be  somewhat 
embarrassed." 


44       THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

"  And  what  will  you  do  with  yourself  when  you've 
shut  up  the  shop  ?  " 

"  I  shall  devote  myself  more  closely  to  my  favourite 
pursuits." 

The  old  man  nodded  and  finished  his  glass  of  port. 

"  A  damned  gentlemanly  occupation,"  said  he, 
"  without  any  confounded  modern  commercialism 
about  it." 

Quixtus  was  pleased.  Hitherto  his  uncle  had  not 
•regarded  his  anthropological  studies  with  too  sym- 
pathetic an  eye.  He  had  lived,  all  his  life,  a  country 
gentleman,  looking  shrewdly  after  his  estates,  building 
cottages,  draining  fields,  riding  to  hounds  and  shooting 
all  things  that  were  to  be  shot  in  their  season.  In 
science  and  scholarship  he  took  no  interest.  It  was 
therefore  all  the  more  gratifying  to  Quixtus  to  hear 
his  studious  scheme  of  life  so  heartily  commended. 
The  end  of  the  visit  was  marked  by  the  same  amenity 
as  the  beginning,  and  Quixtus  returned  to  town  some- 
what strengthened  for  the  ordeal  that  lay  before  him. 

Up  to  the  time  of  the  trial  he  had  met  with  nothing 
but  the  kindly  sympathy  of  friends  and  the  courteous 
addressing  of  those  with  whom  he  came  into  business 
relations.  His  first  battering  against  the  sharp  and 
merciless  edges  of  the  world  took  place  in  open  court. 
He  stood  in  the  witness-box  a  lone,  piteous  spectacle, 
a  Saint  Sebastian  among  witnesses,  unsaved  by  mirac- 
ulous interposition,  like  the  lucky  Sebastian,  from  per- 
sonal discomfort.  That  he  was  an  upright,  sensitive 
gentleman  mattered  nothing  to  judge  and  counsel; 
just  as  the  fact  of  Sebastian's  being  a  goodly  and 
gallant  youth  did  not  affect  his  would-be  executioners. 
At  every  barb  shot  at  him  by  judge  and  counsel  he 
quivered  visibly.  They  were  within  their  rights.  In 
their  opinion,  he  deserved  to  quiver.  At  the  back  of 
their  legal  minds  they  were  all  kindly  gentlemen,  and 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA      45 

out  of  court  had  human  minds  like  yours  and  mine — 
but  in  their  legal  minds,  Judge,  Counsel  for  the  Prose- 
cution, Counsel  for  the  Defence,  all  considered  Quix- 
tus  a  fortunate  man  in  being  in  the  witness-box  at  all ; 
he  ought  to  have  been  in  the  dock.  There  had  never 
ieen  such  fantastically  culpable  negligence.  He  did 
not  know  this;  he  had  not  inquired  into  that;  such  a 
transaction  he  had  just  been  aware  of,  but  never 
understood;  he  had  not  examined  the  documents  in 
question.  Everything  brought  him  by  Marrable  for 
signature,  he  signed  as  a  matter  of  course,  without 
looking  at  it. 

"If  Mr.  Marrable  had  brought  you  a  cheque  for 
£20,000  drawn  in  his  favour  on  your  own  private 
bankers,  would  you  have  signed  it  ?  "  asked  Counsel. 

"  Certainly,"  said  Quixtus. 

"Why?" 

"  I  should  not  have  looked  at  it." 

"  But  supposing  the  writing  on  the  cheque  had,  as 
it  were,  leaped  to  your  eyes  ?  " 

"  I  should  have  taken  it  for  granted  that  it  had  to 
do  with  the  legitimate  business  of  the  firm." 

"  If  that  is  the  case,"  remarked  the  judge,  "  I  don't 
think  that  men  like  you  ought  to  be  allowed  to  go 
about  loose." 

Whereat  there  arose  laughter  in  court,  and  sudden, 
hellish  hatred  of  judges  in  the  heart  of  Quixtus. 

"  Can  you  give  the  court  any  reason  why  you 
drifted  into  such  criminal  carelessness?"  asked 
Counsel. 

"  It  never  entered  my  head  to  doubt  my  partner's 
integrity." 

"  Do  you  carry  this  childlike  faith  in  human  nature 
into  all  departments  of  life?  " 

"  Up  to  now  I  have  had  no  reason  to  distrust  my 
fellow  creatures." 


46       THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

"  I  congratulate  you  as  a  solicitor  on  having  had  a 
unique  experience,"  said  the  judge  acidly. 

Counsel  continued.  "  I  put  it  to  you — suppose  two 
or  three  plausible  strangers  told  you  a  glittering  tale, 
and  one  asked  you  to  entrust  him  with  a  hundred 
pounds  to  show  your  confidence  in  him — would  yoi* 
doit?" 

"  I  am  not  in  the  habit  of  consorting  with  vulgar 
strangers,"  retorted  Quixtus,  with  twitching  lip. 

"  Which  means  that  you  are  too  learned  and  lofty  a 
person  to  deal  with  the  common  clay  of  this  low 
world?" 

"  I  cannot  deal  with  you,"  said  Quixtus. 

Counsel  grew  red  and  angry,  as  there  was  laughter 
in  which  the  judge  joined. 

"  The  witness,"  said  the  latter,  "  is  not  quite  such  a 
fool  as  he  would  give  us  to  imagine,  Mr.  Smithers." 

Thus  the  only  blow  that  Quixtus  could  give  was 
turned  against  him.  Also,  Counsel,  smarting  under 
the  hit,  mishandled  him  severely,  so  that  at  the  end 
of  his  examination  he  stepped  down  from  the  witness- 
box,  less  a  man  than  a  sentient  bruise.  He  remained 
in  court  till  the  very  end,  deathly  pale,  pain  in  his  eyes, 
and  his  mouth  drawn  into  the  lines  of  that  of  a  child 
about  to  cry.  The  trial  proceeded.  There  was  no 
doubt  of  the  guilt  of  the  miserable  wretch  in  the  dock. 
The  judge  summed  up,  and  it  was  then  that  he  said 
the  devastating  things  about  Quixtus  that  inflamed 
his  newly  born  hatred  of  judges  to  such  an  extent 
that  it  henceforth  blackened  his  candid  and  benevo- 
lent soul.  The  jury  gave  their  verdict  without  retir- 
ing, and  Marrable,  at  the  age  of  sixty,  was  condemned 
to  seven  years'  penal  servitude. 

Quixtus  left  the  court  dazed  and  broken.  He  was 
met  in  the  corridor  by  Tommy,  who  gripped  him  by 
the  arm,  led  him  down  into  the  street  and  put  him 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA       47 

into  a  cab.  He  had  not  been  in  court,  being  a  boy 
of  delicate  feelings. 

"  You  must  buck  up,  you  know/'  he  said  to  the 
silent,  grey-faced  man  beside  him.  "  It  will  all  come 
right.  What  you  want  now  is  a  jolly  stiff  brandy- 
and-soda." 

Quixtus  smiled  faintly.  "  I  think  I  do,"  said 
he. 

A  few  minutes  later  Tommy  superintended  the 
taking  of  his  prescription  in  the  dining-room  in  Rus- 
sell Square,  and  eyed  Quixtus  triumphantly  as  he  set 
down  the  empty  glass. 

"  There !  That'll  set  you  straight.  There's  nothing: 
like  it." 

Quixtus  held  out  his  hand.  "  You're  a  good  boy, 
Tommy.  Thanks  for  taking  care  of  me.  I'll  be  all 
right  now." 

"  Don't  you  think  I  might  be  of  some  use  if  I 
stayed  ?  It's  a  bit  lonesome  here." 

"  I  have  a  big  box  of  stuff  from  the  valley  of  the 
Dordogne,  which  I  haven't  opened  yet,"  said  Quixtus. 
"  I  was  saving  it  up  for  this  evening,  so  I  shan't  be 
lonesome." 

"  Well,  be  sure  to  have  a  good  dinner  and  a  bottle 
of  fizz,"  said  Tommy.  After  which  sage  counsel  he 
went  reluctantly  away. 

Just  as  Clementina  was  sitting  down  to  dinner 
Tommy  rushed  in  with  a  crumpled  evening  newspaper 
in  his  hand,  incoherent  with  rage.  Had  she  seen  the 
full  report?  What  did  she  think  of  it?  How  dared 
they  say  such  things  of  a  high-minded  honourable 
gentleman?  Counsel  on  both  sides  were  a  disgrace 
to  the  bar,  the  judge  a  blot  on  the  bench.  They  ought 
not  to  be  allowed  to  cumber  the  earth.  They  ought 
to  be  shot  on  sight.  Out  West  they  would  never  have 
left  the  court  ^alive.  Had  he  lived  in  a  simpler  age, 


48       THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

or  in  a  more  primitive  society,  the  young  Paladin 
would  have  gone  forth  and  slaughtered  them  in  the 
bosom  of  their  families.  Fortunately,  all  he  could 
do  by  way  of  wreaking  his  vengeance  was  to  tear  the 
newspaper  in  half,  throw  it  on  the  floor,  and  stamp 
on  it. 

"  Feel  better?  "  asked  Clementina,  who  had  listened 
to  his  heroics  rather  sourly.  "  If  so,  sit  down  and  have 
some  food." 

But  Tommy  declined  nourishment.  He  was  too 
sore  to  eat.  His  young  spirit  revolted  against  the 
injustice  of  the  world.  It  clamoured  for  sympathy. 

"  Say  you  think  it  damnable." 

"  Anything  to  do  with  the  law  is  always  damnable," 
said  Clementina.  "  You  shouldn't  put  yourself  within 
its  clutches.  Please  pass  me  the  potatoes." 

Tommy  handed  her  the  dish.  "  I  believe  you're 
as  hard  as  nails,  Clementina." 

"  All  right,  believe  it,"  she  replied  grimly.  And 
she  would  not  say  more,  for  in  what  she  thought  was 
her  heart  she  agreed  with  the  judge. 


CHAPTER  IV 

QUIXTUS  was  still  bowing  his  head  over  the 
dishonoured  grave  of  "  Quixtus  and  Son  " 
when  the  second  thunder-bolt  fell.  The 
public  disgrace  drove  a  temperamentally  hermit-like 
nature  into  more  rigid  seclusion.  He  resigned  his 
presidency  of  the  Anthropological  Society.  The 
Council  met  and  unanimously  refused  to  accept 
his  resignation.  They  wrote  in  such  terms  that  he 
could  not  do  otherwise  than  yield.  But  he  gave  up 
his  attendance  at  their  meetings.  To  a  man,  his 
friends  among  the  learned  professed  their  sympathy. 
It  hurt  rather  than  healed.  Those  who  wrote  received 
courteous  and  formal  replies.  Those  who  knocked 
at  his  door  were  refused  admittance.  Even  Clementina, 
repenting  of  her  harshness  and  pitying  the  lonely  and 
helpless  man,  pinned  on  a  shameless  thing  that  had 
once  resembled  a  hat,  and  went  up  by  omnibus  to 
Russell  Square,  only  to  find  the  door  closed  against 
her.  The  woman  thus  scorned  became  the  fury  which, 
according  to  the  poet,  is  unknown  in  Hades.  She 
expressed  her  opinion  of  Quixtus  pretty  freely.  But 
Quixtus  shrank  from  her  as  he  shrank  from  every  one, 
as  he  even  shrank  from  his  own  servants.  These  he 
dismissed,  with  the  exception  of  Mrs.  Pennycook, 
his  housekeeper,  who,  since  the  death  of  his  wife  had 
held  a  high  position  of  trust  in  his  household,  and  a 
vague  female  of  humble  and  heterogeneous  appearance, 
who  lived  out,  and  had  the  air  of  apologising  for  in- 
ability to  squeeze  through  the  wall  when  he  passed  by. 
In  view  of  he  knew  not  what  changes  in  his  immediate 

49 


50      THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

financial  circumstances,  economy,  he  said,  was  desir- 
able. He  also  shut  up  the  greater  part  of  the  big  house, 
finding  a  dim  sort  of  pleasure  in  such  retrenchment. 
He  lived  in  his  museum  at  the  back,  ate  his  meals 
in  the  little  dark  room  at  the  head  of  the  kitchen 
stairs,  and  changed  his  luxurious  bedroom  for  a 
murky,  cheerless  little  chamber  adjoining  the  museum. 
When  a  man  takes  misery  for  a  bride  he  may  be  for- 
given for  exaggeration  in  his  early  transports. 

Only  on  Tuesday  nights  did  he  throw  open  dining- 
room  and  drawing-room,  where  he  received  Huckaby, 
Vandermeer,  and  Billiter  as  in  the  past.  To  them 
his  smile  and  his  old  self  were  given.  Indeed  he  found 
a  newer  sympathy  with  them.  He,  even  as  they,  had 
been  the  victim  of  outrageous  fortune.  He,  too,  had 
suffered  from  the  treachery  of  man  and  the  insolence 
of  office.  The  three  found  an  extra  guerdon  in  their 
great-coat  pockets. 

There  were  times,  however,  when  the  museum 
grew  wearisome  through  familiarity,  when  he  fonnd 
no  novelty  in  the  Quaternary  skull  from  Silesia,  or 
the  engraved  reindeers  on  the  neolithic  axe-heads, 
or  the  necklet  of  the  lady  or  the  bronze  age;  when 
he  craved  things  nearer  to  his  own  time  which  could 
give  him  some  message  of  modernity.  On  such  occa- 
sions he  would  either  walk  abroad,  or  if  the  weather 
were  foul,  take  a  childish  pleasure  in  exploring  the 
sealed  chambers  of  the  house.  For,  shut  up  a  room, 
exclude  from  it  the  light  of  day,  cover  the  furniture 
with  dust-sheets  till  you  get  the  semblance  of  a  morgue 
of  strange  beasts,  forget  it  for  a  while,  and,  on  re- 
entering  it,  you  will  have  all  the  elements  of  mystery 
which  gradually  and  agreeably  gives  place  to  little 
pleasant  shocks  of  discovery  of  the  familiar.  The 
neglected  pictures  that  have  hung  on  the  walls,  the 
huddled  knick-knacks  on  a  table,  the  heap  of  books  on 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA       51 

the  floor,  all  have  messages  of  gentle  reproach.  A 
newspaper  of  years  ago,  wrapped  round  a  cushion, 
once  opened  by  eager  hands  and  containing  in  its 
headlines  world-shaking  news  (now  so  stale  and  for- 
gotten) is  a  pathetic  object.  In  drawers  are  garments 
out  of  date,  preserved  heaven  knows  why,  keepsakes 
worked  by  fair  hands,  unused  but  negligently  treas- 
ured, faded  curtains  which  will  never  be  rehung — a 
thousand  old  stimulating  things,  down  to  ends  of 
sealing-wax  and  carefully  rolled  bits  of  twine.  And 
some  drawers  are  empty,  and  from  them  rises  the 
odour  of  lavender  poignant  with  memories  of  the 
things  that  are  no  more. 

It  was  a  large,  old-fashioned  house  which  had  been 
his  father's  before  him,  in  which  he  had  been  born; 
and  it  was  full  of  memories.  In  the  recess  of  a  dark 
cupboard  in  one  of  the  attics  he  found  a  glass  jar, 
which  had  escaped  the  vigilance  or  commanded  the 
respect  of  generations  of  housemaids,  covered  with  a 
parchment  on  which  was  written  in  his  mother's  hand, 
"  Damson  Jam."  His  mother  had  died  a  quarter  of  a 
century  ago. 

An  old  hair-trunk  in  the  corner  of  the  box-room, 
such  a  hair-trunk  as  the  boldest  man  during  Quixtus's 
lifetime  would  have  shrunk  from  having  attached 
to  him  on  his  travels,  contained  correspondence  of 
his  grandfather's  and  old  daguerrotypes  and  photo- 
graphs of  stiff,  staring,  faded  people  long"  since  gone 
to  a  (let  us  hope)  more  becomingly  attired  world. 
There  was  a  miniature  on  ivory,  villainously  painted, 
of  a  chubby  red-cheeked  child,  and  on  the  back  was 
written  "  My  Son  Mathew,  aged  two  years  and  six 
months."  Could  the  shrivelled,  myriad-wrinkled, 
palsied  old  man  whom  Ephraim  had  visited  but  a  short 
while  since  ever  have  remotely  resembled  this?  The 
hair-trunk  also  contained  a  pistol  with  a  label  "  Car- 


52       THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

ried  by  my  father  at  Waterloo."  That  was  the  old 
gentleman  who  had  lived  to  a  hundred  and  four.  Why 
had  this  relic  of  family  honour  remained  hidden  all 
his  life? 

The  more  he  searched  into  odd  corners  the  more 
did  his  discoveries  stimulate  his  interest.  Of  his 
own  life  he  found  records  in  unexpected  places.  A 
bundle  of  school-reports.  He  opened  it  at  random, 
and  his  eye  fell  upon  the  Headmaster's  Report  at  the 
foot  of  a  sheet ;  "  Studious  but  unpractical.  It  seems 
impossible  to  arouse  in  him  a  sense  of  ambition,  or 
even  of  the  responsibilities  of  life."  He  smiled  some- 
what wistfully  and  put  the  bundle  in  his  pocket  with 
a  view  to  the  further  acquisition  of  self-knowledge. 
A  set  of  Cambridge  college  bills  tied  with  red  tape, 
a  broken  microscope,  a  case  of  geometrical  drawing 
instruments,  a  manuscript  book  of  early  poems, 
mimetic  echoes  of  Keats,  Tennyson,  Shelley,  Swin- 
burne, who  were  all  clamouring  together  in  his  brain, 
his  college  blazer,  much  moth-eaten,  his  Heidelberg 
student's  cap,  ditto.  .  .  .  Ah!  qu'ils  sont  loin  ces 
jours  si  regre tie's!  .  .  . 

Of  his  wife,  too,  there  were  almost  forgotten  relics. 
An  oak  chest  opened  unexpectedly  disclosed  a  pair 
of  little  pink  satin ,  slippers  standing  wistfully  on  the 
top  of  the  tissue  paper  that  protected  the  dresses 
beneath.  The  key  was  in  the  lock.  He  closed  the 
lid  reverently,  locked  the  chest,  and  put  the  key  in 
his  pocket.  They  had  had  together  five  years  of  placid 
happiness.  She  was  a  sweet,  white-winged  soul — 
Angela.  Her  little  boudoir  on  the  second  floor  had 
not  been  used  since  her  death,  and  was  much  as  she 
had  left  it.  Only  the  dust-sheets  and  the  gloom 
invested  it  in  a  more  ghostly  atmosphere  than  other 
less  sacred  chambers.  Her  work-basket  stood  by  the 
window.  He  opened  it  and  found  it  still  contained 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA       53 

a  reel  of  thread  and  a  needle-case  stuck  full  of  rusty 
needles.  On  the  wall  hung  an  enlarged  portrait  of 
himself  at  the  age  of  thirty — he  was  not  quite  so  lan- 
tern-jawed then,  and  his  hair  was  thicker  on  the  top. 
A  water-colour  sketch  of  Angela  hung  over  the  oak 
bureau,  at  which  she  used  to  write  her  dinner-notes 
and  puzzle  her  pretty  head  over  household  accounts. 
He  drew  up  the  blind  so  as  to  see  the  picture  more 
clearly.  Yes.  It  was  like  her.  Dark-haired,  fragile, 
with  liquid  brown  eyes.  There  was  just  that  dimple 
in  her  chin.  .  .  .  He  remembered  it  so  well ;  but, 
strangely,  it  had  played  no  part  in  his  customary 
mental  picture  of  her.  In  the  rediscovery  of  the  dim- 
ple he  found  a  vague  melancholy  pleasure.  .  .  .  Idly 
he  drew  down  the  slanting  lids  of  the  bureau,  and 
pulled  out  the  long  narrow  drawers  that  supported 
it  underneath.  The  interior  was  empty.  He  recol- 
lected now  that  he  had  cleared  it  of  its  contents  when 
settling  Angela's  affairs  after  her  death.  He  thrust 
up  the  slanting  lid,  pushed  back  the  long  right-hand 
drawer,  pushed  the  left  hand  one.  It  stuck.  He 
tried  to  ease  it  in,  but  it  was  jammed.  He  pulled  it 
out  with  a  jerk,  and  found  that  the  cause  of  the  jam 
was  a  letter  flat  against  the  end  of  the  drawer  with 
a  corner  turned  over  the  edge.  He  took  out  the  letter, 
closed  the  drawers,  and  smiled  sadly,  glad  to  have 
discovered  a  new  relic  of  Angela  in  the  bureau — 
probably  a  gossiping  note  from  a  friend,  perhaps  one 
from  himself.  He  went  to  the  light  of  the  window. 

"  My  adored  heart's  dearest  and  most  beloved 
angel " — so  the  letter  began.  He  scanned  the  words 
bewildered.  Certainly  in  his  wildest  dreams  he  had 
never  imagined  such  a  form  of  address.  Besides,  the 
handwriting  was  not  his.  He  turned  the  sheet  rapidly 
and  glanced  at  the  end;  "God!  How  I  love  you. 
WILL/' 


54       THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

"Will?  Will  Hammersley.  It  was  Will  Ham- 
mersley's  handwriting.  What  did  it  mean?  He 
paused  for  a  few  moments,  breathing  hard,  looking 
with  blind  eyes  through  the  window  over  the  square. 
At  last  he  read  the  letter.  Then  he  thrust  it,  a  crum- 
pled ball,  into  his  pocket  and  reeled  out  of  the  room 
like  a  drunken  man,  down  the  stairs  of  the  lonely 
house,  and  flung  himself  into  a  chair  in  his  museum, 
where  he  sat  for  hours  staring  before  him,  paralysed 
with  an  awful  dismay. 

At  five  o'clock  his  housekeeper  entered  with  the 
tea-things.  He  did  not  want  tea.  At  seven  she  came 
again  into  the  large  dark  room  lit  only  by  the  red 
glow  of  the  fire. 

"  The  gentlemen  are  here,  sir." 

It  was  a  Tuesday  evening.     He  had  forgotten. 

He  stumbled  to  his  feet. 

"  All  right,"  he  said. 

Then  he  shivered,  feeling  a  deadly  sickness  of  soul. 
No,  he  could  not  meet  his  fellow  creatures  to-night. 

"  Give  them  my  compliments  and  apologies,  and 
say  I  am  unwell  and  unable  to  dine  with  them  this 
evening.  See  that  they  have  all  they  want,  as 
usual." 

"  Very  good,  sir — but  yourself  ?  Fm  sorry  you  are 
ill,  sir.  What  can  I  bring  you  ?  " 

"  Nothing,"  said  Quixtus  harshly.  "  Nothing.  And 
please  don't  trouble  me  any  more." 

Mrs.  Pennycook  regarded  him  in  some  astonish- 
ment, not  having  heard  him  speak  in  such  a  tone  be- 
fore. Probably  no  one  else  had,  since  he  had  learned 
to  speak. 

"  If  you're  not  better  in  the  morning,  sir,  I  might 
fetch  the  doctor." 

He  turned  in  his  chair.  "  Go.  I  tell  you.  Go. 
Leave  me  alone." 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA       55 

Later  he  rose  and  switched  on  the  light  and,  me-* 
chanically  descending  to  the  hall,  like  a  sleep-walker, 
deposited  his  usual  largesse  in  the  pockets  of  the  three 
seedy,  familiar  overcoats.  Then  he  went  up  to  his 
museum  again.  .The  effort,  however,  had  cleared  his 
mind.  He  reflected.  He  had  not  been  very  well 
of  late.  There  were  such  things  as  hallucinations, 
to  which  men  broken  down  by  mental  strain  were 
subject.  Let  him  read  the  letter  through  once  more. 
He  took  the  crumpled  paper  from  his  pocket,  smoothed 
it  out  and  read.  No.  There  was  no  delusion.  The 
whole  story  was  there — the  treachery,  the  faithless- 
ness, the  guilty  passion  that  gloried  in  its  repeated  con- 
summation. His  wife  Angela,  his  friend  Will  Ham- 
mersley — the  only  woman  and  the  only  man  he  had 
ever  loved.  A  sudden  memory  smote  him.  He  had 
entrusted  her  to  Hammersley's  keeping  times  out  of 
number. 

"  My  God !  "  said  he,  beating  his  forehead  with  a 
clenched  fist.  "My  God!" 

And  so  fell  the  second  thunderbolt. 

Towards  midnight  there  came  a  heavy  knocking  at 
his  door.  Startled  by  the  unusual  sound  he  cried : 

"  What's  that  ?    Who's  there  ?  " 

The  door  opened  and  Eustace  Huckaby  lurched 
solemnly  into  the  room.  His  ruffled  hair  stood  up 
on  end  like  a  cockatoo's  crest,  and  his  watery  eyes 
glistened.  He  pulled  his  straggling  beard. 

"  Sorry  ole'  man  to  hear  you're  seedy.  Came  to 
know — how — getting  on." 

Quixtus  rose,  a  new  sternness  on  his  face,  and  con- 
fronted the  intruder. 

"  Huckaby,  you're  drunk." 

Huckaby  laughed  and  waved  a  protesting  hand, 
thereby  nearly  losing  his  balance. 

"  No,"     said     he.     "  Rid'klous.     I'm     not  drunk. 


56       THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

Other  fellows  are — drunk  ash  owls — tha's  why — 
couldn't  come  see  you.  They're  not  qui'  sort  of  men 
been  acushtomed  to  assochate  with — I'm — University 
man — like  you  Quishtus — sometime  Fellow  Corpus 
Christi  College,  Cambridge — I  first  gave  motto  for 
club — didn't  I?  Procul,  O  procul  este  profani — tha's 
Latin.  Other  two  lobsters  don't  know  word  of  Latin 
— ignorant  as  lobsters — lobsters — tha's  wha'  I  call 
'em."  He  lurched  heavily  into  a  chair.  "  Awful 
thirsty.  Got  a  drink  old  f 'la  ?  " 

"  No,"  said  Quixtus.  "  I  haven't.  And  if  I  had,  I 
wouldn't  give  it  to  you." 

The  reprobate  pondered  darkly  over  the  announce- 
ment. Then  he  hiccoughed,  and  his  face  brightened. 

"  Look  here,  dear  old  frien' " 

Quixtus  interrupted  him. 

"  Do  you  mean  to  tell  me  those  other  men  are  drunk 
too?" 

"  As  owls — you  go  down — see  'em." 

He  threw  back  his  head  and  broke  out  into  sudden 
shrill  laughter.  Then,  checking  himself,  he  said  with 
an  awful  gravity: 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,  Quishtus.  Their  conduc's  dis- 
grace— humanity." 

"  You  three  have  dined  in  this  house  once  a  week 
for  years,  and  no  one  has  left  it  the  worse  for  liquor. 
And  now,  the  first  time  I  leave  you  to  yourselves — I 
was  really  not  able  to  join  you  to-night — you  take 
advantage  of  my  absence,  and " 

Huckaby  staggered  to  his  feet  and  tried  to  lay  his 
hand  on  Quixtus's  shoulder.  Having  recovered  him- 
self, he  put  it  on  top  of  a  case  of  prehistoric  imple- 
ments. 

"  That's  just  what  I  want — explain  to  you.  They're 
lobsters,  dear  ole'  friend — just  lobsters — all  claw  and 
belly  and  no  heart.  I'm  a  University  man  like  you. 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA       57 

Corpush  Christi  College,  Cambridge — They're  not 
friends  of  yours.  They're  lobsters.  Ruddy  lobsters. 
I'm  not  drunk  you  know.  I'm  all  right.  I'm  telling 
you " 

Quixtus  took  him  by  the  arm.  "  I  think  you  had 
better  go  away,  Huckaby." 

"  No.  Send  other  fellows  away.  I'm  your  frien'," 
said  he,  pointing  a  shaky  forefinger.  "  I  want  to  tell 
you.  I'm  a  University  man  and  so  are  you,  and  I 
don't  care  how  much  you  made  out  of  it.  You're  all 
right  Quishtus.  I'm  your  frien'.  Other  lobsters  said  at 
dinner  that  if  justice  were  done  you'd  be  in  quod." 

Quixtus  took  the  gaunt  sot  by  the  shoulders  and 
shook  him.  "  What  the  devil  do  you  mean  ?  " 

"  Don't,  don't — don't  upset  good  dinner,"  said 
Huckaby  wriggling  away.  "  You  won't  believe  I'm 
your  friend.  Van  and  Billiter  say  you  were  in  with 
Parable — Paramour — wha's  his  name?  all  the  time, 
and  it's  just  your  rosy  luck  that  you  weren't  doing 
time  too.  Now  I  don't  care  if  you  did  stand  in  with 
Parachute — 'tisn't  my  business.  But  I'll  stan'  by  you.  I, 
Eustace  Huckaby,  Master  of  Arts,  sometime  Fellow 
of  Corpush  Christi  College,  Cambridge.  There'sh  my 
hand." 

He  extended  it,  but  Quixtus  regarded  it  not. 

11  The  three  of  you  have  not  contented  yourselves 
wkh  getting  drunk,  but  you've  been  slandering  me 
behind  my  back — foully  slandering  me." 

He  went  to  the  door  and  flung  it  open.  "  I  think  it's 
time,  Huckaby,  that  we  joined  the  others." 

Huckaby  shambled  down  the  stairs,  murmuring  of 
lobsters  and  parables,  and  turning  every  now  and  then 
to  assure  his  host  that  adverse  circumstances  made 
no  difference  to  his  imperishable  affection;  and  so 
they  reached  the  dining-room.  Huckaby  had  spoken 
truly.  Billiter  was  sprawling  back  in  his  chair,  his 


58       THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

coat  and  waistcoat  covered  with  cigar-ash;  his  bald 
head  was  crowned  by  the  truncated  cone  of  a  candle- 
shade  (a  jest  of  Huckaby's)  which  gave  him  an  ap- 
pearance that  would  have  been  comic  to  a  casual  ob- 
server, but  to  Quixtus  was  peculiarly  obscene.  His 
dazed  eyes  were  fixed  stupidly  on  Vandermeer  who, 
the  picture  of  woe,  was  weeping  bitterly  because  he 
had  no  one  to  love  him.  At  the  sight  of  Quixtus, 
Billiter  made  an  effort  to  rise,  but  fell  back  heavily  on 
to  his  seat,  the  candle-shade  falling  likewise.  He  mut- 
tered hoarsely  and  incoherently  that  it  was  the  con- 
founded gout  again  in  his  ankles.  Then  he  expressed 
a  desire  to  slumber.  Vandermeer  raised  a  maudlin 
face. 

"  No  one  to  love  me,"  he  whined,  and  tried  to  pour 
from  an  empty  decanter;  it  slipped  from  his  hand 
and  broke  a  glass.  "  Not  even  a  drop  of  consolation 
left,"  he  said. 

"  Disgrashful,  isn't  it?"  said  Huckaby  with  a  hic- 
cough. 

Quixtus  eyed  them  with  disgust  Humanity  was 
revolting.  He  turned  to  Huckaby  and  said  with  a 
shudder :  "  For  God's  sake,  take  them  away." 

Huckaby  summed  them  up  with  an  unsteady  but 
practised  eye.  "  Can't  walk.  Ruddy  lobsters.  Must 
have  cabs." 

Quixtus  went  to  the  street-door  and  whistled  up 
a  couple  of  four-wheelers  from  the  rank;  and  eventu- 
ally, by  the  aid  of  Huckaby  and  the  cabmen  whom 
he  had  to  bribe  heavily  to  drive  the  wretches  home, 
they  were  deposited  in  some  sort  of  sitting  posture 
each  in  a  separate  vehicle.  As  soon  as  the  sound  of 
the  departing  wheels  died  away,  Quixtus  held  out 
Huckaby's  overcoat. 

"  You're  sober  enough  to  walk,"  said  he,  helping 
him  on  with  it.  "  Good-night" 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA       59 

Huckaby  turned  on  the  doorstep. 

"  Want  you  to  remember — don't  care  damn  what 
a  frien'  has  done — ever  want  help,  come  to  me,  some- 
time Fellow  of  Corp — 

Quixtus  closed  the  street  door  in  his  face  and  heard 
no  more.  These  were  his  friends ;  these  the  men  who 
had  lived  on  his  bounty,  who,  for  years,  for  what 
they  could  get,  had  controlled  their  knavery,  their 
hypocrisy.  These  were  the  men  for  whom  he  had 
striven,  these  sots,  these  dogs,  these  vulgar-hearted, 
slandering  knaves!  His  very  soul  was  sick.  He 
paused  at  the  dining-room  door  and  for  a  moment 
looked  at  the  scene  of  the  debauch.  Wine  and  coffee 
were  spilled;  glasses  broken;  a  lighted  stump  of 
cigar  had  burned  a  great  brown  hole  in  the  tablecloth. 
He  grimly  imagined  the  tipsy  scene.  If  he  had  been 
with  them,  there  would  have  been  smug  faces,  depre- 
cating hands  upheld  at  the  second  round  of  the  port, 
talk  on  art,  literature,  religion,  and  what-not,  and, 
at  parting,  whispered  blessings  and  fervent  hand- 
shakes; and  all  the  time  there  would  have  been 
slanderous  venom  in  their  hearts,  and  the  raging 
beast  of  drink  within  them  cursing  him  for  his  re- 
pressing presence. 

"  The  canting  rogues,"  he  murmured  as  he  went 
back  to  his  museum.  "  The  canting  rogues!  " 

He  thrust  his  hands,  in  a  gesture  of  anger  and  dis- 
gust, deep  into  his  jacket-pockets.  His  knuckles  came 
against  the  crumpled  letter.  He  turned  faint  and 
clung  to  the  newel-post  on  the  landing  for  support. 
The  smaller  treachery  coming  close  before  his  eyes  had 
for  the  time  eclipsed  the  greater. 

"  My  God,"  he  said,  "  is  all  the  world  against  me?  " 

Unfortunately  there  was  a  thunderbolt  or  two  yet 
to  fall. 


CHAPTER  V 

*  TTTIO  my  nephew  Ephraim  for  his  soul's  good  I 

bequeath  my  cellar  of  wine  which  I  adjure 

-*•      him  to  drink  with  care,  thought,  diligence, 

and  appreciation,  being  convinced  that  a  sound  judge 

of  wine  is,  or  is  on  the  way  to  becoming  what  my 

nephew  is  not,  a  judge  of  men  and  affairs." 

Quixtus  stared  at  the  ironical  words  written  in 
Mathew  Quixtus's  sharp  precise  handwriting,  and 
turned  with  a  grey  face  to  the  lawyer  who  had  pointed 
them  out. 

"  Is  that  the  only  reference  to  me  in  the  will,  Mr. 
Henslow  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  Unfortunately,  yes,  Dr.  Quixtus.  You  can  see  for 
yourself."  He  handed  Quixtus  the  document. 

Mathew  Quixtus  had  bequeathed  large  sums  of 
money  to  charities,  smaller  sums  to  old  servants,  the 
wine  to  Ephraim,  and  the  residue  of  his  estate  to  a 
Quixtus  unknown  to  Ephraim,  save  by  hearsay,  who 
had  settled  thirty  years  before  in  New  York.  Even 
Tommy  Burgrave,  with  whom  he  had  been  on  good 
terms,  was  not  mentioned.  But  he  had  quarrelled 
years  before  with  his  niece,  Tommy's  mother,  for 
making  an  impecunious  marriage,  and,  to  do  him  jus- 
tice, had  never  promised  the  boy  anything.  The  will 
was  dated  a  few  weeks  back,  and  had  been  witnessed 
by  the  butler  and  the  coachman. 

"  I  should  like  you  to  understand,  Dr.  Quixtus," 
said  Henslow,  "  that  until  we  found  that  envelope 
I  had  no  idea  that  your  uncle  had  made  a  fresh  will. 

60 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA       61 

I  came  here  with  the  old  one  in  my  hand,  which  I 
drew  up  and  which  has  been  in  my  office-safe  for 
fifteen  years.  Under  that,  I  need  not  tell  you,  you 
were,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  trifling  legacies, 
the  sole  legatee.  I  am  deeply  grieved." 

"  Let  me  see  that  date  again,"  said  Quixtus. 

He  pressed  his  hands  to  his  eyes  and  thought.  It 
was  the  day  before  his  arrival  on  his  last  visit. 

The  telegram  announcing  Mathew  Quixtus's  sudden 
death  had  brought  a  gleam  of  light  into  a  soul  which 
for  a  week  had  been  black  with  misery.  It  awakened 
him  to  a  sense  of  outer  things.  A  sincere  affection 
for  the  old  man  had  been  a  lifelong  habit.  It  was 
a  shock  to  realise  that  lie  was  no  longer  alive.  Besides 
having  always  unconsciously  taken  a  child's  view  of 
death,  he  felt  genuinely  sorry,  for  his  uncle's  sake, 
that  he  should  have  died.  Impulses  of  pity,  tender- 
ness, regret,  stirred  in  his  deadened  heart.  He  forth- 
with set  out  for  Devonshire,  and  when  he  arrived  at 
Croxton,  stood  over  the  pinched  waxen  face  till  the 
tears  came  into  his  eyes. 

He  had  summoned  Tommy  Burgrave,  the  only  other 
member  of  the  family  in  England,  but  Tommy  had  not 
been  able  to  attend.  He  had  caught  cold  while  paint- 
ing in  the  open  air,  and  was  in  bed  with  a  slight  attack 
of  congestion  of  the  lungs.  Quixtus  was  alone  in  the 
great  house.  With  the  aid  of  Henslow  he  made  the 
funeral  arrangements.  The  old  man  was  laid  to  rest 
in  the  quiet  churchyard  of  Croxton.  Half  the  county 
came  to  pay  their  tribute  to  his  memory,  and  shook 
Quixtus  by  the  hand.  Then  he  came  back  to  the 
house,  and  in  the  presence  of  one  or  two  of  the  old 
servants,  the  will  was  read. 

It  had  been  dated  the  day  before  his  arrival  on  his 
last  visit.  The  thing  had  been  written  and  signed 
and  witnessed  and  sealed,  and  was  lying  in  that  locked 


62       THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

drawer  in  the  library  all  the  time  that  the  old  man 
was  welcoming  him,  flattering  him,  showing  him 
deference.  All  the  suavity  and  deference  had  been 
mockery.  The  old  man  had  made  him  a  notorious 
geek  and  gull. 

His  pale  blue  eyes  hardened,  and  he  turned  an 
expressionless  face  to  the  lawyer. 

"  I'm  afraid  it  would  not  be  possible,"  said  Hen- 
slow,  "  to  have  the  will  set  aside  on  the  ground  of,  say 
— senility — on  the  part  of  the  testator." 

"  My  uncle  had  every  faculty  at  its  keenest  when 
he  wrote  it,"  said  Quixtus,  "  including  that  of  merci- 
less cruelty." 

"  It  was  a  heartless  jest,"  the  lawyer  agreed. 

"  If  you  will  do  me  a  service,  Mr.  Henslow, 
you  might  be  kind  enough  to  instruct  one  of  the 
servants  to  pack  up  my  bag  and  forward  it  to  my 
London  address.  I  am  going  now  to  the  railway  sta- 
tion." 

The  lawyer  looked  at  his  watch  and  put  out  a  de- 
taining hand. 

"  There's  not  a  decent  train  for  two  or  three  hours." 

"  I  would  rather,"  said  Quixtus,  "  ride  a  tortoise 
home  than  stay  in  this  house  another  moment." 

He  walked  out  of  the  room  and  out  of  the  house, 
and  after  waiting  at  the  station  whence  he  despatched 
a  telegram  to  his  housekeeper,  who  was  not  expecting 
him  back  for  two  or  three  days,  took  the  first  train — 
a  slow  one — to  London. 

In  his  corner  of  the  railway  carriage  the  much- 
afflicted  man  sat  motionless,  brooding.  Everything 
had  happened  that  could  shake  to  its  foundations  a 
man's  faith  in  humanity,  and  swallow  it  up  in  abysmal 
darkness.  Suddenly,  as  though  by  a  prearranged 
design — as  we  know  was  the  case  with  his  forerunner 
in  the  Land  of  Uz — cataclysm  after  cataclysm  had 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA       63 

revealed  to  him  the  essential  baseness,  treachery, 
cruelty  of  mankind.  For  in  his  eyes  these  were  proved 
to  be  essential  qualities.  Had  they  not  been  revealed 
to  him,  not  by  fitful  gleams,  but  in  one  steady  lurid 
glare,  in  the  nature  of  those  who  had  been  nearest 
to  him  in  the  world — Angela,  Will  Hammersley, 
Marrable,  Huckaby,  Vandermeer,  Billiter,  Mathew 
Quixtus?  If  the  same  hell-streak  ran  through  the 
souls  of  these,  surely  it  must  run  through  the  souls 
of  all  the  sons  and  daughters  of  Adam.  Now  here 
came  the  great  puzzle.  Why  should  he,  Ephraim 
Quixtus,  (as  far  as  he  could  tell)  vary  from  the  un- 
kindly race  of  man?  Why  hitherto  had  baseness, 
treachery,  and  cruelty  been  as  foreign  to  his  nature  as 
an  overpowering  inclination  towards  arson  or  homi- 
cide ?  Why  had  he  been  unequipped  with  these  quali- 
ties which  appeared  to  serve  mortals  as  weapons 
wherewith  to  fight  the  common  battle  of  life?  The 
why,  he  could  not  tell.  That  he  had  them  not,  was 
obvious.  That  he  had  gone  to  the  wall  through  lack 
of  them  was  obvious,  too.  Instead  of  the  dagger  of 
baseness,  the  sword  of  cruelty,  the  shield  of  treachery, 
all  finely-tempered  implements  of  war,  he  had  been 
fighting  with  the  wooden  lath  of  virtue  and  the  brawn- 
buckler  of  trust.  Armed  as  he  should  have  been,  he 
would  have  out  manoeuvred  Marrable  at  his  own  game, 
kept  his  wife  in  chaste  and  wholesome  terror  of  his 
jealousy,  sent  Huckaby  and  Company  long  since  to  the 
limbo  where  they  belonged,  deluded  his  uncle  into  the 
belief  that  he  was  a  devil  of  a  fellow,  and  now  be 
standing  with  flapping  wings  and  crowing  voice  tri- 
umphant on  this  dunghill  of  a  world.  But  he  had  been 
hopelessly  outmatched.  Whoever  had  taken  upon  him- 
self the  responsibility  of  equipping  him  for  the  battle 
of  life  had  been  g*tilty  of  incredible  negligence.  But 
on  whom  could  he  call  to  remedy  this  defect?  Men 


64       THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

called  on  the  Unknown  God  to  make  them  good ;  but 
it  would  be  idiotic  as  well  as  blasphemous  to  call  on 
Him  to  make  one  bad.  How,  then,  were  the  essential 
qualities  of  baseness,  treachery,  and  cruelty  to  be  cap- 
tured and  brought  into  his  armoury?  Perhaps  the 
Devil  might  help.  But  we  are  so  matter-of-fact  and 
scientific  in  these  days  that  even  the  simple  soul  of 
Quixtus  could  not  quite  believe  in  his  existence.  If 
he  had  lived  in  the  Middle  Ages  (so  in  scholarly  gloom 
ran  his  fancy)  he  could  have  drawn  circles  and  penta- 
grams and  things  on  the  floor,  and  uttered  the  incanta- 
tions, and  all  the  hierarchy  of  hell  would  have  been 
at  his  command,  Satanas,  Lucifer,  Mephistopheles, 
Asmodeus,  Samael,  Asael,  Beelzebub,  Azazel,  Maca- 
thiel.  .  .  .  Quixtus  rather  leaned  towards  Maca- 
thiel — the  name  suggested  a  merciless,  bowelless,  high- 
cheek-boned  devil  in  a  kilt • 

Impatiently  he  shook  his  thoughts  free  from  the 
fantastic  channel  into  which  they  had  wandered  and 
brought  them  back  into  the  ever-thickening  slough 
of  his  soul.  The  train  lumbered  on,  stopping  at 
pretty  wayside  stations  where  fresh-faced  folk  with 
awkward  gait  and  soft  deep  voices  clattered  cheerily 
past  Quixtus's  windows  on  their  way  to  or  from  the 
third-class  carriages,  or  at  the  noisier,  bustling  stations 
of  large  towns.  Now  and  then  a  well-dressed  traveller 
invaded  his  solitude  for  a  short  distance.  But  Quixtus 
sat  in  his  remote  corner  seeing,  hearing  nothing, 
brooding  on  the  baseness,  treachery,  and  cruelty  of 
mankind.  He  had  come  to  the  end  of  love,  the  end 
of  trust,  the  end  of  friendship.  When  the  shapes  of 
those  who  were  still  loyal  to  him  flitted  across  his 
darkened  fancy  he  cursed  them  in  his  heart.  They 
were  as  corrupt  as  the  rest.  That  they  had  not  been 
found  out  in  their  villainy  only  proved  a  thicker  mask 
of  hypocrisy.  He  had  finished  with  them  all.  If 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA       65 

he  had  been  a  more  choleric  man  gifted  with  the  power 
of  picturesque  vehemence  of  language  he  might  have 
outrivalled  Timon  of  Athens  in  the  denunciations  of 
his  fellows.  It  must  be  a  relief  to  any  one  in  such  a 
frame  of  mind  to  stand  up  and,  with  violent  gestures, 
express  his  views  in  terms  of  sciatica,  itches,  blains, 
leprosy,  venomed  worms  and  ulcerous  sores,  and  to 
call  upon  the  blessed  breeding  sun  to  draw  from  the 
earth  rotten  humidity,  and  below  his  sister's  orb  to 
infect  the  air.  He  knows  exactly  what  he  feels,  gives 
it  full  artistic  expression,  and  finds  himself  all  the 
better  for  it.  But  Quixtus,  inarticulate,  had  no  such 
comfort.  Indeed,  he  could  hardly  have  expressed  the 
welter  of  horror,  hate,  and  misery  that  was  his  moral 
being,  in  any  form  of  speech  whatever.  As  the  train 
rumbled  on,  the  phrase  "  Evil  be  thou  my  good  "  wove 
itself  into  the  rhythm  of  the  machinery.  He  let  it 
sing  dully  and  stupidly  in  his  ears,  and  his  mind 
worked  subconsciously  back  to  Macathiel. 

As  yet  he  had  imagined  no  future  attitude  towards 
life.  His  soul  was  in  a  state  of  negation.  The  in- 
sistent invocation  of  Evil  was  but  a  catchword, 
irritating  his  brain  and  having  no  real  significance. 
At  the  most  he  envisaged  the  future  as  a  period  of 
inactive  misanthropy  and  suspicion.  He  had  as  yet 
no  stirrings  to  action.  On  the  other  hand,  he  did  not, 
like  Job,  after  the  first  series  of  afflictions,  rend  his 
clothes,  shave  his  head,  and  bear  his  reverses  with 
pious  resignation. 

The  train  arrived  an  hour  late,  as  slow  trains  are 
apt  to  do,  and  it  was  nearly  half-past  eleven  when  he 
reached  his  house  in  Russell  Square.  He  opened  the 
door  with  his  latchkey.  The  hall  was  dark,  contrary 
to  custom.  He  switched  on  the  light,  and,  turning, 
saw  that  the  letter-box  had  not  been  cleared. 
Mechanically  he  took  out  the  letters,  and  beneath  the 


66       THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

hall  lamp  glanced  at  the  outside  of  the  envelopes. 
Among  them  was  the  telegram  he  had  sent  from  Dev- 
onshire. 

Even  a  man  wallowing  in  the  deepest  abysses  of 
spiritual  misery  needs  food;  and  when  he  finds  that 
a  telegram  ordering  supper  (for  his  return  was  un- 
expected) has  not  been  opened,  he  may  be  pardoned 
purely  material  disappointment  and  irritation.  Mrs. 
Pennycook,  the  housekeeper,  must  have  profited  by 
his  absence  to  take  a  holiday.  But  what  business  had 
she  to  take  a  holiday  and  leave  the  house  uncared  for 
at  that  time  of  night?  For,  if  she  had  returned,  she 
would  have  lit  the  hall-light,  and  cleared  the  letter- 
box. He  resigned  himself  peevishly  to  the  prospect 
of  a  biscuit  and  a  whisky-and-soda  in  the  little  back 
room  where  he  ate  his  meals. 

He  strode  down  the  passage  to  the  head  of  the 
kitchen  stairs  and  opened  the  study  door.  A  glare 
of  light  met  his  eyes,  and  a  moment  afterwards  some- 
thing else.  This  was  Mrs.  Pennycook  in  an  armchair, 
sleeping  a  bedraggled  sleep  with  two  empty  quart 
bottles  of  champagne  and  an  empty  bottle  of  whisky 
by  her  side.  He  shook  her  hard  by  the  shoulders, 
but  beyond  stertorous  and  jerky  breaths  the  blissful 
lady  showed  no  signs  of  animation. 

It  was*  then  that  a  constricting  thread  snapped  in 
Quixtus's  brain.  It  was  then,  as  if  by  a  trick  of  magic, 
that  all  the  vaguely  billowing  horrors,  disillusions, 
disgusts,  resentments  and  hatreds  co-ordinated  them- 
selves into  a  scheme  of  fierce  vividness. 

Just  as  the  boils  made  Job,  who  had  borne  the  an- 
nihilation of  his  family  with  equanimity,  open  his 
mouth  and  curse  his  day,  so  did  a  drunken  servant, 
who  neglected  to  give  him  his  supper,  awaken 
Ephraim  Quixtus  to  the  glorious  thrill  of  a  remorse- 
less, relentless  malignity. 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA       67 

He  threw  up  his  hands  and  laughed  aloud,  peals  of 
unearthly  laughter  that  woke  the  echoes  of  the  empty 
house,  that  woke  the  canary  in  its  cage  by  the  win- 
dow, causing  it  to  utter  a  few  protesting  "  cheeps," 
that  arrested  the  policeman  on  his  beat  outside,  that 
did  everything  human  laughter  in  the  way  of  noise 
can  do,  even  stimulating  the  blissful  lady  to  open  half 
a  glazed  eye  for  the  fraction  of  a  second.  After  his 
paroxysm  had  subsided,  he  looked  at  the  woman  for  a 
moment,  and  then  with  an  air  of  peculiar  malevolence 
took  a  sheet  of  note-paper  from  a  small  writing-table 
beneath  the  canary's  cage  and  wrote  on  it : 
"  Let  me  never  see  your  face  again. — E.  Q." 
This,  by  the  aid  of  a  hairpin  that  had  fallen  into 
her  lap,  he  pinned  to  her  apron.  Then,  with  another 
laugh,  he  left  her  beneath  the  glare  of  the  light,  and 
went  out  into  the  street.  He  was  thrilled,  like  a 
drunken  man,  with  a  new  sense  of  life.  Years  had 
fallen  from  his  shoulders.  He  had  solved  the  riddle 
of  the  world.  Baseness,  treachery,  cruelty  he  felt 
them  pulsating  in  his  heart  with  a  maddening  joy  of 
existence.  Evil  was  his  good.  He  was  no  longer 
even  a  base,  treacherous,  cruel  man.  He  was  a  devil 
incarnate.  The  long  exultant  years  in  front  of  him 
would  be  spent  in  deeds  of  shame  and  crime  and  un- 
precedented wickedness.  If  there  was  a  throne  to  be 
waded  to  through  slaughter,  through  slaughter  would 
he  wade  to  it.  He  would  shut  the  gates  of  Mercy  on 
mankind.  He  held  out  both  hands  in  front  of  him 
with  stiffened  outspread  fingers.  If  only  there  was  a 
human  throat  between  them,  how  they  would  close 
around  it,  how  he  would  gloat  over  the  dying  agony ! 
Caligula  was  the  man  for  him.  He  regretted  his  un- 
timely death.  What  a  colleague  could  have  been  made 
of  the  fiend  who  wished  that  the  whole  human  race 
had  one  neck  so  that  it  could  be  severed  at  one  blow ! 


68       THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

He  had  reached  this  stage  in  his  exultant  reflections 
when  he  found  himself  outside  a  restaurant  which  he 
had  never  entered,  at  the  Oxford  Street  end  of  the 
Tottenham  Court  Road.  He  remembered  that  he  was 
hungry;  that  a  new-born  spirit  of  wickedness  must  be 
fed.  He  went  in,  unconscious  of  the  company  or  the 
surrounding's,  and  ordered  supper.  The  waiter  said 
that  it  was  nearly  closing  time.  Quixtus  called  for  a 
plate  of  cold  beef  and  a  whisky-and-soda.  He  de- 
voured the  meat  ravenously,  forgetful  of  the  bread  by 
his  side,  and  drank  the  drink  at  a  gulp.  Having  lit  a 
cigar,  he  threw  half  a  sovereign  on  the  table  and 
walked  out.  He  walked  along  the  streets  heedless  of 
direction,  down  Shaftesbury  Avenue,  across  Piccadilly 
Circus  blazing  with  light,  through  Leicester  Square, 
along  the  still  hurrying  Strand  to  Fleet  Street  noise- 
less and  empty,  his  brain  on  fire,  weaving  exquisite 
fabrics  of  deviltry.  Suddenly  he  halted  on  a  glorious 
thought.  Why  should  he  not  begin  there  and  then? 
The  whole  of  London,  with  its  crime  and  sin  and  rot- 
tenness, lay  before  him.  He  retraced  his  steps  back 
to  the  Babylon  of  the  West.  What  could  he  do? 
Where  could  he  find  adequate  wickedness  ?  When  he 
reached  Charing  Cross  again  it  was  dark  and  deserted. 
A  square  mile  of  London  has  every  night  about  an 
hour  of  tearing,  surging,  hectic  life.  Then  all  of  a 
sudden  the  thousands  of  folk  are  swept  away  to  the 
four  corners  of  the  mighty  city,  and  all  is  still.  A 
woman,  as  Quixtus  passed,  quickened  her  pace  and 
murmured  words.  Here  was  a  partner  in  wickedness 
to  his  hand.  But  the  flesh  of  the  delicately  fibred  man 
revolted  simultaneously  with  the  thought.  No.  That 
did  not  come  within  his  scheme  of  wickedness.  He 
slipped  a  coin  into  the  woman's  palm,  because  she 
looked  so  forlorn,  and  went  his  way.  She  was  useless 
for  his  purpose.  What  he  sought  was  some  occasion 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA       69 

for  pitilessness,  for  doing  evil  to  his  fellow-creatures. 
A  fine  rain  began  to  fall;  but  he  heeded  it  not,  burn- 
ing with  the  sense  of  adventure.  A  reminiscence  of 
Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde  crossed  his  mind.  Hyde, 
like  Caligula,  was  also  the  man  for  him.  Didn't  he 
once  throw  a  child  down  in  a  lonely  street  and  stamp 
on  it? 

He  walked  and  walked  through  the  now  silent 
places,  and  the  more  he  walked  the  less  opening  for 
wickedness  did  he  see.  The  potentialities  of  Babylon 
appeared  to  him  overrated.  After  a  wild  and  aimless 
detour  he  found  himself  again  at  Charing  Cross.  He 
struck  down  Whitehall.  But  in  Whitehall  and  Parlia- 
ment Street,  the  stately  palaces  on  either  side,  vast 
museums  of  an  Empire's  decorum,  forbade  the  sug- 
gestion of  wickedness.  The  belated  omnibuses  and 
cabs  that  passed  along  were  invested  with  a  momen- 
tary hush  of  respectability.  He  turned  up  the 
Thames  Embankment  and  saw  the  mass  of  the  great 
buildings  with  here  and  there  patches  of  lighted 
windows  showing  above  the  tree-tops  of  the  gardens, 
the  benches  below  filled  with  huddled  sodden  shapes 
of  human  misery,  the  broad  silent  thoroughfares,  the 
parapet,  the  dimly  flowing  river  below — a  black  mirror 
marked  by  streaks  of  light,  reflections  from  lamps 
on  parapet  and  bridges,  the  low-lying  wharves  on 
the  opposite  side  swallowed  up  in  blackness — and  no 
attractive  wickedness  was  apparent ;  nor  was  there  any 
on  the  great  bridge,  disturbed  only  by  the  slow  wag- 
gons mountains  high  bringing  food  for  the  insatiable 
multitude  of  London,  and  lumbering  on  in  endless 
trail  with  an  impressive  fatefulness;  nor  even  at  the 
coffee-stall  at  the  corner  of  the  Waterloo  Bridge 
Road,  its  damp  little  swarm  of  frequenters  clustering 
to  it  like  bees,  their  faces  illuminated  by  the  segment 
of  light  cast  by  the  reflector  at  the  back  of  the  stall, 


70       THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

all  harmlessly  drinking  cocoa  or  wistfully  watching 
others  drink  it.  For  a  moment  he  thought  of  joining 
the  swarm,  as  some  of  the  faces  looked  alluringly  vile ; 
but  the  inbred  instinct  of  fastidiousness  made  him  pass 
it  by.  He  plunged  into  the  unsavoury  streets  beyond. 
They  were  still  and  ghostly.  All  things  diabolical 
could  no  doubt  be  found  behind  those  silent  windows ; 
but  at  two  o'clock  in  the  morning  sin  is  generally 
asleep,  and  sleeping  sin  and  sleeping  virtue  are  as 
alike  as  two  pins.  Meanwhile  the  fine  rain  fell  un- 
ceasingly, and  the  Earnest  Seeker  after  Wickedness 
began  to  feel  wet  and  chilly. 

This  is  a  degenerate  age.  A  couple  of  centuries 
ago  Quixtus  could  have  manned  a  ship  with  cut- 
throats, hoisted  the  skull  and  cross-bones,  and  become 
the  Terror  of  the  Seas.  Or,  at  a  more  recent  date,  if 
he  had  been  a  Corsican  he  could  have  taken  his  gun 
and  gone  into  the  maquis  and  declared  war  on  the 
island.  If  he  had  lived  in  the  fourteenth  century  he 
could  have  become  a  condottiere  after  the  fashion  of 
the  gentle  Duke  Guarnieri,  who,  wearing  on  his  breast 
a  silver  badge  with  the  inscription  "  The  Enemy  of 
God,  of  Pity,  and  of  Mercy,"  gained  for  himself  en- 
viable unpopularity  in  Northern  Italy.  As  a  Malay, 
he  could  have  taken  a  queerly  curving,  businesslike 
knife  and  run  amuck,  to  his  great  personal  satisfac- 
tion. In  prehistoric  times,  he  could  have  sat  for  a 
couple  of  delicious  months  in  a  cave,  polishing  and 
sharpening  a  beautiful  axe-head,  and,  having  fitted  it 
to  its  haft,  have  gone  forth  and  (probably  skulking 
behind  trees  so  as  to  get  his  victims  in  the  rear)  have 
had  as  gorgeous  a  time  as  was  given  to  prehistoric 
man  to  imagine.  But  nowadays,  who  can  do  these  de- 
lightful, vindictive,  and  misanthropical  things  with 
any  feeling  of  security?  If  Quixtus,  obeying  a  log- 
ically developed  impulse,  had  slaughtered  a  young  man 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA       71 

in  evening  dress  in  Piccadilly,  he  most  indubitably 
would  have  been  hung,  to  say  nothing  of  being  sut>- 
jected  to  all  the  sordid  procedure  of  a  trial  for  murder. 

Nor  is  this  all.  Owing  to  some  flaw  in  our  system 
of  education,  Quixtus  had  not  been  trained  to  deeds  of 
violence ;  no  one  had  even  set  before  him  the  theoreti- 
cal philosophy  of  the  subject.  You  may  argue,  I  am 
aware,  that  we  use  other  weapons  now  than  the  cut- 
lass of  the  pirate  or  the  stone-axe  of  the  quaternary 
age;  we  have  the  subtler  vengeance  of  voice  and  pen, 
which  can  give  a  more  exquisite  finish  to  the  devasta- 
tion of  human  lives.  But  I  would  remind  you  that 
Quixtus,  through  the  neglect  of  his  legal  studies  and 
practice,  was  ignorant  of  the  ordinary  laws  of  chicane, 
and  of  the  elementary  principles  of  financial  dishon- 
esty that  guided  the  nefariousness  of  folk  like  "Ge- 
henna, Unlimited." 

It  must  be  admitted,  therefore,  that  Quixtus  entered 
on  his  career  of  depravity  greatly  handicapped. 

The  grey  light  of  a  hopeless  May  dawn  was  just 
beginning  to  outline  the  towers  and  spires  of  West- 
minster against  the  sky  when  Quixtus  found  himself 
by  the  Westminster  Hospital.  He  was  damp  and  chill, 
somewhat  depressed.  The  thrill  of  adventure  had 
passed  away,  leaving  disappointment  and  a  little  dis- 
illusion in  its  place.  He  was  also  physically  fatigued, 
and  his  shoulders  and  feet  ached.  One  ghostly  han- 
som-cab stood  on  the  rank,  the  horse  drooping  its  de- 
jected head  into  a  lean  nosebag,  the  driver  asleep  in- 
side. Quixtus  resolved  to  arouse  the  man  from  his 
slumbers,  and,  abandoning  the  pursuit  of  evil  for  the 
night,  drive  home  to  Russell  Square.  But  as  he  was 
crossing  the  road  towards  the  vehicle,  a  miserable  ob- 
ject, starting  up  from  the  earth,  ran  by  his  side  and 
addressed  him  in  a  voice  so  hoarse  that  it  scarcely  rose 
above  a  whisper. 


72       THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

"  For  Cord's  sake,  guv'nor,  spare  a  poor  man  a 
copper  or  two.  I've  not  tasted  food  for  twenty-four 
hours." 

Quixtus  stopped,  his  instinctive  fingers  diving  into 
his  pence-pocket.  Suddenly  an  idea  struck  him. 

"  You  must  have  led  a  very  evil  life,"  said  he,  "  to 
have  come  to  this  stage  of  destitution." 

"Watcher  gettin'  at?"  growled  the  applicant,  one 
eye  fixed  suspiciously  on  Quixtus's  face,  the  other  on 
the  fumbling  hand. 

"  I'm  not  going  to  preach  to  you — far  from  it,"  said 
Quixtus ;  "  but  I  should  like  to  know.  You  must  have 
seen  a  great  deal  of  wickedness  in  your  time." 

"  If  you  arsk  me,"  opined  the  man,  "  there's  noth- 
ing but  wickedness  in  this  blankety  blank  world." 

He  did  not  say  "  blankety  blank,"  but  used  other 
and  more  lurid  epithets  which;  though  they  were  not 
exactly  the  ones  that  Quixtus  himself  would  have 
chosen,  at  least  showed  him  that  his  companion  and 
himself  were  agreed  on  their  fundamental  conception 
of  the  universe. 

"If  you  will  tell  me  where  I  can  find  some,"  he 
said,  "  I  will  give  you  half  a  crown." 

A  glimmer  of  astonished  interest  lit  up  the  man's 
dull  eyes.  "  Whatcher  want  to  know  for  ?  " 

"  That's  my  business,"  said  Quixtus. 

The  cabman,  suddenly  awakened,  saw  the  possibility 
of  a  fare.  He  clambered  out  of  the  vehicle. 

"  Cab,  sir  ?  "  he  called  across  the  road. 

"  Yes,"  said  Quixtus. 

"  'Arf  a  crown  ?  "  said  the  battered  man. 

"  Certainly,"  said  Quixtus. 

"  Then  I'll  tell  yer,  guv'nor.  I've  been  a  bookie's 
tout,  see?  Not  a  slap-up  bookie  in  the  ring — but  an 
outside  one — one  what  did  a  bit  of  welshing  when  he 
could,  see  ? — and  what  I  say  is,  that  I  seed  more  wick- 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA       73 

edness  there  than  anywhere  else.  If  you  want  to  see 
blankety  blank  wickedness  you  go  on  the  turf."  He 
cleared  his  throat,  but  his  whisper  had  grown  almost 
inaudible.  "  I've  gone  and  lost  my  voice,"  he  said. 

Quixtus  looked  at  the  drenched,  starved,  voiceless, 
unshorn  horror  of  a  man  standing  outcast  and  dyingf 
of  want  and  wickedness  in  the  grey  dawn,  under  the 
shadow  of  the  central  symbols  of  the  pomp  and  ma- 
jesty of  England. 

"  You  look  very  ill,"  said  he. 

"  Consumpshon,"  breathed  the  man. 

Quixtus  shivered.  The  cabman,  who  had  hastily 
dispossessed  the  dejected  horse  of  the  nosebag,  had 
climbed  into  his  dicky  and  was  swinging  the  cab 
round. 

"  I  thank  you  very  much  for  your  information," 
said  Quixtus.  "  Here's  half  a  sovereign." 

Voicelessness  and  wonder  provoked  an  inarticulate 
wheeze  like  the  spitting  of  a  cat.  The  man  was  still 
gaping  at  the  unaccustomed  coin  in  his  hand  when 
the  cab  drove  off.  But  Quixtus  had  not  been  many 
minutes  on  his  way  when  a  thought  smote  him  like 
a  sledge-hammer.  He  brought  his  fist  down  furiously 
on  the  leathern  seat. 

"  What  a  fool !  What  a  monumental  fool  I've 
been !  "  he  cried. 

He  had  just  realised  that  the  devil  had  offered  him 
as  pretty  a  little  chance  of  sheer  wickedness  as  could 
be  met  with  on  a  May  morning,  which  he  had  not 
taken.  Instead  of  giving  the  man  ten  shillings,  he 
ought  to  have  laughed  in  his  face,  taunted  him  with 
his  emaciation  and  driven  off  without  paying  the  half- 
crown  he  had  promised.  To  have  let  the  very  first  op- 
portunity slip  through  his  fingers!  He  would  have 
to  wear  a  badge  like  that  of  the  gentle  Duke  Guarnieri 
to  keep  his  wits  from  wandering. 


74       THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

When  he  reached  home  he  looked  for  a  moment  into 
the  little  room  at  the  head  of  the  kitchen  stairs.  The 
Blissful  One  still  slept,  a  happy  smile  on  her  face,  and 
the  paper  pinned  to  her  apron. 

There  was  surely  some  chance  of  wickedness  here. 
Quixtus  furcns  scratched  an  inventive  head.  Suppose 
he  carried  her  outside  and  set  her  on  the  doorstep.  He 
regarded  her  critically.  She  was  buxom — about 
twelve  stone.  He  was  a  spare  and  unathletic  man.  A 
great  yawn  interrupted  his  speculations,  and  turning 
off  the  light  he  stumbled  off  sleepily  and  wearily  to 
bed. 


T 


CHAPTER  VI 

HE  Blissful  One  carried  out  her  master's  writ- . 
ten  injunction.  He  did  not  see  her  face 
again.  She  packed  up  her  trunks  the  next 
morning  and  silently  stole  away  with  a  racking  head- 
ache and  a  set  of  gold  teaspoons  which  she  took  in 
lieu  of  a  month's  wages.  The  vague  female  awakened 
Quixtus  and  prepared  his  breakfast.  When  he  asked 
her  whether  she  could  cook  lunch,  she  grew  pale  but 
said  that  she  would  try.  She  went  to  the  nearest 
butcher,  bought  a  fibrous  organic  substance  which  he 
asserted  to  be  prime  rump-steak,  and  coming  back  did 
something  desperate  with  it  in  a  frying  pan.  After 
the  first  disastrous  mouthful,  Quixtus  rose  from  the 
table. 

"  I  give'  it  to  you  for  yourself,  my  good  woman," 
said  he,  priding  himself  on  his  murderous  intent.  "  I'll 
get  lunch  elsewhere." 

He  went  to  his  club,  for  the  first  time  for  many 
days.     And  this  marked  his  reappearance  in  the  great  ( 
world. 

He  was  halfway  through  his  meal  when  a  man,- 
passing  down  the  room  from  pay-desk  to  door,  caught 
sight  of  him  and  approached  with  extended  hand. 

"  My  dear  Quixtus.  How  good  it  is  to  see  you 
again." 

He  was  a  bald,  pink-faced  little  man,  wearing  great 
round  gold  spectacles  that  seemed  to  be  fitted  on  to  his 
smiles.  Kindliness  and  the  gladness  of  life  emanated 
from  him,  as  perfume  does  from  a  jar  of  attar  of 

75 


76       THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

roses.  His  name  was  Wonnacott,  and  he  was  a  mem- 
ber of  the  council  of  the  Anthropological  Society. 
Quixtus,  who  had  known  him  for  years,  scanned  his 
glad  cherubic  face,  and  set  him  down  as  a  false-hearted 
scoundrel.  With  this  mental  reservation  he  greeted 
him  cordially  enough. 

"  We  want  you  badly,"  said  Wonnacott.  "  Things 
aren't  all  they  should  be  at  the  Society." 

"  The  monkey's  tail  peeping  out  between  their  coat 
tails  ?  "  Quixtus  asked  eagerly. 

"  No.  No.  It's  only  Griffiths."  Griffiths  was  the 
Vice-President.  "  He  knows  his  subject  as  well  as 
anybody,  but  he's  a  perfect  fool  in  the  chair.  We 
want  you  back." 

"  Very  good  of  you  to  say  so,"  replied  Quixtus, 
"  but  I'm  thinking  of  resigning  from  the  Society  al- 
together, giving  up  the  study  of  anthropology  and 
presenting  my  collection  to  a  criminal  lunatic  asylum." 

Wonnacott,  laughing,  drew  a  chair  from  the  vacant 
table  next  to  Quixtus's  and  sat  down. 

"Why What?" 

"  We  know  how  Primitive  Man  in  most  of  the 
epochs  slew  his  enemies,  cooked  his  food,  and  adorned 
or  disfigured  his  person;  but  of  the  subtle  workings  of 
his  malignant  mind  we  are  hopelessly  ignorant." 

"  I  don't  suppose  his  mind  was  more  essentially  ma- 
lignant than  yours  or  mine,"  said  Wonnacott. 

"  Quite  so,"  Quixtus  agreed.  "  But  we  can  study 
the  malignancy,  the  brutality  and  bestiality  of  the 
minds  of  us  living  people.  We  are  books  open  for 
each  other  to  read.  Historic  man  too  we  can  study — 
from  documents — Nero,  Alexander  the  Sixth,  Titus 
Oates,  Sweeny  Tod  the  Barber " 

"  But,  my  dear  man,"  smiled  Wonnacott,  "  you  are 
getting  into  the  province  of  criminology." 

"  It's  the  only  science  worth  studying,"  said  Quix- 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA       77 

tus.  Then,  after  a  pause,  during  which  the  waiter 
put  the  Stilton  in  front  of  him  and  handed  him  the 
basket  of  biscuits,  "  Do  you  ever  go  to  race  meet- 
ings?" 

"  Sometimes — Yes,"  laughed  the  other,  startled  at 
the  unexpectedness  of  the  question.  "  I  have  my  little 
weaknesses  like  other  people." 

"  There  must  be  a  great  deal  of  wickedness  to  be 
found  on  race-courses." 

"  Possibly,"  replied  Wonnacott,  apologetically,  "  but 
I've  never  seen  any  myself." 

Quixtus  musingly  buttered  a  piece  of  biscuit. 
"  That's  a  pity.  A  great  pity.  I  was  thinking  of 
going  on  the  turf.  I  was  told  that  nowhere  else  could 
such  depravity  be  found." 

One  or  two  of  Wonnacott's  smiles  dropped,  as  it 
were,  from  his  face  and  he  looked  keenly  at  Quixtus. 
He  saw  a  hard  glitter  in  the  once  mild,  china-blue 
eyes,  and  an  unnatural  hardness  in  the  setting  of  the 
once  kindly  lips.  There  was  a  curious  new  eagerness 
on  a  face  that  had  always  been  distinguished  by  a 
gentle  repose.  The  hands,  too,  that  manipulated  the 
knife  and  biscuits,  shook  feverishly. 

"  I'm  afraid  you're  not  very  well,  my  dear  fellow," 
said  he. 

"  Not  well  ?  "  Quixtus  laughed,  somewhat  harshly. 
"  Why  I  feel  ten  times  younger  than  I  did  this  time 
yesterday.  I've  never  been  so  well  in  my  life.  Why, 
I  could "  he  stopped  short  and  regarded  Wonna- 
cott suspiciously "  No.  I  won't  tell  you  what  I 

could  do." 

He  drank  the  remainder  of  his  glass  of  white  wine, 
and  threw  his  napkin  on  the  table. 

"  Let  us  go  and  smoke,"  said  he. 

In  the  smoking-room,  Wonnacott,  still  observing 
him  narrowly,  asked  him  why  he  was  so  interested  in 


78       THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

the  depravity  of  the  turf.  Quixtus  met  his  eyes  with 
the  same  suspicious  glance. 

"  I  told  you  I  was  going  to  take  up  the  study  of 
criminology.  It's  a  useful  and  fascinating  science. 
But  as  the  subject  does  not  seem  to  interest  you,"  he 
added  with  a  quick  return  to  his  courteous  manner, 
"  let  us  drop  it.  You  mustn't  suppose  I've  lost  all  in- 
terest in  the  Society.  What  especially  have  you  to 
complain  of  about  Griffiths?  " 

Wonnacott  explained,  and  for  the  comfortable  half- 
hour  of  coffee  and  cigarettes  after  lunch  they  dis- 
cussed the  ineffectually  of  Griffiths  and,  as  all  good 
men  will,  exchanged  views  on  the  little  foibles  of  their 
colleagues  on  the  Council  of  the  Anthropological  So- 
ciety. Quixtus  discoursed  so  humanly,  that  Wonna- 
cott, on  his  way  office-wards,  having  lit  a  cigar  at  the 
spirit-lamp  in  the  club-vestibule,  looked  at  the  burning 
end  meditatively  and  said  to  himself: 

"  I  must  have  been  mistaken  after  all."  x 

But  Quixtus  remained  for  some  time  in  the  club 
deep  in  thought,  scanning  a  newspaper  with  unseeing 
eyes.  He  had  been  injudicious  in  his  conversation 
with  Wonnacott.  He  had  almost  betrayed  his  secret. 
It  behooved  him  to  walk  warily.  In  these  days  the 
successful  serpent  has  to  assume  not  only  the  voice, 
but  the  outer  semblance  and  innocent  manners  of  the 
dove.  If  he  went  crawling  and  hissing  about  the 
world,  proclaiming  his  venomousness  aloud  like  a  rat- 
tle-snake, humanity  would  either  avoid  him  altogether, 
or  hit  him  over  the  head  out  of  self -protection.  He 
must  ingratiate  himself  once  more  with  mankind,  and 
only  strike  when  opportunity  offered.  For  that  reason 
he  would  simulate  a  continued  interest  in  Prehistoric 
Man. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  newly  born  idea  of  the  study 
of  criminology  hovered  agreeably  and  comfortingly 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA       79 

over  his  mind.  So  much  so,  that  he  presently  left  the 
club,  and,  walking  to  a  foreign  library,  ordered  the 
works  of  Cesare  Lombroso,  Ottolenghi,  Ferri,  Topin- 
ard,  Corre  and  as  many  other  authorities  on  criminol- 
ogy as  he  could  think  of,  and  then,  having  ransacked 
the  second-hand  bookshops  in  Charing  Cross  Road, 
drove  home  exultant  with  an  excellent  set  of  "  The 
Newgate  Calendar." 

Thus  he  entered  upon  a  new  phase  of  life.  He  be- 
gan to  mingle  again  with  his  fellows,  hateful  and 
treacherous  dogs  though  they  were.  He  was  no 
longer  morose  and  solitary.  At  the  next  meeting  of 
the  Anthropological  Society  he  occupied  the  Presiden- 
tial Chair,  amid  a  chorus  of  (hypocritical)  welcome. 
He  accepted  invitations  to  dinner.  Also,  finding  in- 
tense discomfort  in  the  ministrations  of  the  vague  fe- 
male, and  realising  that  after  making  good  all  Mar- 
rable's  defalcations,  he  was  still  the  possessor  of  a  large 
fortune,  he  procured  the  services  of  a  cook  and  re- 
instated his  former  manservant — luckily  disengaged — 
in  office,  and  again  inhabited  the  commodious  apart- 
ments which  he  had  abandoned.  In  fact,  he  not  only 
resumed  his  former  mode  of  life,  but  exceeded  it  on 
the  social  side,  walking  more  abroad  into  the  busy 
ways  of  men.  In  all  of  which  he  showed  wisdom. 
For  it  is  manifestly  impossible  for  a  man  to  pursue 
a  successful  career  of  villainy  if  he  locks  himself  up 
in  the  impregnable  recesses  of  a  gloomy  house  and 
meets  no  mortal  on  whom  to  practise. 

One  afternoon,  after  deep  and  dark  excogitation, 
he  proceeded  to  Romney  Place  and  called  upon 
Tommy  Burgrave  whom  he  had  not  seen  since  the  day 
of  the  trial.  Tommy,  just  recovering  from  the  attack 
of  congestion  of  the  lungs,  which  had  prevented  him 
from  attending  his  great-uncle's  funeral,  was  sitting- 
in  his  dressing-gown  before  the  bedroom  fire,  while 


8o       THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

Clementina,  unkempt  as  usual,  was  superintending  his 
consumption  of  a  fried  sole. 

Tommy  greeted  him  boyishly.  He  couldn't  rise,  as 
his  lap  was  full  of  trays  and  fat  things.  His  uncle 
would  find  a  chair  somewhere  in  the  corner.  It  was 
jolly  of  him  to  come. 

"  You  might  have  come  sooner,"  snapped 
Clementina.  "  The  boy  has  been  half  dead.  If 
it  hadn't  been  for  me,  he  would  have  been  quite 
dead." 

"  You  nursed  him  through  his  illness  ?  " 

"  What  else  do  you  suppose  I  meant?  " 

"  He  could  have  had  a  trained  nurse,"  said  Quixtus. 
'"'  There  are  such  things." 

"  Trained  nurses !  "  cried  Clementina,  in  disdain. 
"  I've  no  patience  with  them.  If  they're  ugly,  they're 
brutes — because  they  know  that  a  good-looking  boy 
like  Tommy  won't  look  at  them.  If  they're  pretty, 
they're  fools,  because  they're  always  hoping  that  he 
will." 

"  I  say,  Clementina,"  Tommy  protested.  "  Nurses 
are  the  dearest  people  in  the  world.  A  fellow  crocked 
up  is  just  a  '  case  '  for  them,  and  they  never  think  of 
anything  but  pulling  him  through.  'Tisn't  fair  of  you 
to  talk  like  that." 

"  Isn't  it?  "  said  Clementina,  conscious  of  a  greater 
gap  than  usual  in  the  back  of  her  blouse,  and  strug- 
gling with  one  hand  to  reconcile  button  and  hole. 
"  What  on  earth  do  you  know  about  it  ?  Just  tell  me, 
are  you  a  woman  or  am  I  ?  " 

Tommy  laid  down  his  fork  with  a  sigh.  "  You're 
an  angel,  Clementina,  and  this  sole  was  delicious ;  and 
I  wish  there  were  more  of  it." 

She  took  the  tray  from  his  knees  and  put  it  on  a 
side  table.  Tommy  turned  to  Quixtus  who  sat  Sphinx- 
like  on  a  straight-back  chair,  and  expressed  his  regret 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA       81 

at  not  having  been  able  to  attend  his  great-uncle's 
funeral. 

"  You  missed  an  interesting  ceremony,"  said 
Quixtus. 

Tommy  laughed.  "  I  suppose  the  old  man  didn't 
leave  me  anything?  " 

He  had  heard  nothing  privately  about  the  will,  and, 
as  probate  had  not  yet  been  taken  out,  the  usual  sum- 
mary had  not  been  published  in  the  newspapers. 

"  I'm  afraid  not,"  said  Quixtus.  "  Did  you  expect 
anything?  " 

"  Oh  Lord,  no !  "  laughed  Tommy,  honestly. 

"  Then  more  fool  you,  and  more  horrid  old  man 
he,"  said  Clementina. 

There  was  a  pause.  Quixtus,  not  feeling  called 
upon  to  defend  his  defunct  and  mocking  kinsman,  said 
nothing.  Clementina  drew  the  crumpled  yellow  packet 
of  Maryland  tobacco  and  papers  from  a  pocket  in  her 
skirt  (she  insisted  on  having  pockets  in  her  skirts)  and 
rolled  a  cigarette.  When  she  had  licked  it,  she  turned 
to  Quixtus. 

"  I  suppose  you  know  that  I  came  like  a  fool  to  your 
house  and  was  refused  admittance." 

"  Well  trained  servants,"  said  Quixtus,  "  have  a 
knack  of  indiscriminate  obedience." 

"  You  might  have  said  something  more  civil,"  she 
said,  taken  aback. 

"If  you  will  dictate  to  me  a  formula  of  politeness 
I  will  repeat  it  with  very  great  pleasure,"  he  retorted. 
"  Put  a  little  honey  on  my  tongue  and  it  will  wag  as 
mellifluously  as  that  of  any  hypocrite  who  wins  for 
himself  the  adulation  of  mankind." 

"  Mercy's  sake  man!  "  exclaimed  Clementina,  in  her 
astonishment  allowing  the  smoke  to  mingle  with  her 
words.  "  Where  on  earth  did  you  learn  to  talk  like 
that?" 


82       THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

Their  eyes  met,  and  Clementina  suddenly  screwed 
up  her  face  and  looked  at  him.  She  saw  in  those 
blue  eyes  something,  she  could  not  tell  what,  but  some- 
thing which  had  not  been  in  the  eyes  of  the  gentle, 
sweet-souled  man  she  had  painted.  Her  grimace,  al- 
though familiar  through  the  sittings,  somewhat  dis- 
concerted him.  She  made  the  grim  sound  that  with 
her  represented  laughter. 

"  I  was  only  wondering  whether  I  had  got  you 
right  after  all." 

"Of  course,  you  got  him  right,"  cried  Tommy  the 
ingenuous.  "  It's  one  of  the  rippingest  pieces  of  work 
you've  ever  done." 

"  The  Anthropological  Society  find  it  quite  satis- 
factory," said  Quixtus  stiffly. 

"  Flattered,  I'm  sure,"  said  Clementina. 

Tommy,  dimly  aware  now  of  antagonism,  diplo- 
matically introduced  a  fresh  topic  of  conversation. 

"  You  haven't  told  him,  Clementina,"  said  he,  "  of 
the  letter  you  got  the  other  day  from  Shanghai." 

"  Shanghai  ?  "  echoed  Quixtus. 

"  Yes,  from  Will  Hammersley,"  said  Clementina, 
her  voice  softening.  "  He's  in  very  bad  health,  and 
hopes  to  come  home  within  a  year.  I  thought  you, 
too,  might  have  heard  from  him." 

Quixtus  shook  his  head.  For  a  moment  he  could 
not  trust  himself  to  speak.  The  sudden  mention  of 
that  detested  name  stunned  him  like  a  blow.  At  last 
he  said:  "  I  never  realised  you  were  such  friends." 

"  He  used  to  come  to  me  in  my  troubles." 

Quixtus  passed  his  hand  between  neck  and  collar,  as 
if  to  free  his  throat  from  clutching  fingers.  His  voice, 
when  he  spoke,  sounded  hoarse  and  far  away  in  his 
ears. 

"  You  were  in  his  confidence,  I  suppose." 

"  I  think  so,"  said  Clementina,  simply. 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA       83 

To  the  sorely  afflicted  man's  unbalanced  and  sus- 
picious mind  this  was  a  confession  of  complicity  in 
the  wrong  he  had  suffered.  He  controlled  himself 
with  a  great  effort,  and  turned  his  face  away  so  that 
she  should  not  see  the  hate  and  anger  in  his  eyes. 
She,  too,  had  worked  against  him.  She,  too,  had 
mocked  him  as  the  poor  blind  fool.  She,  too,  he 
swore  within  himself,  should  suffer  in  the  general  de- 
vastation he  would  work  upon  mankind.  As  in  a 
dream  he  heard  her  summarise  the  letter  which  she  had 
received.  Hammersley  had  of  late  been  a  victim  to 
the  low  Eastern  fever.  Once  he  had  nearly  died,  but 
had  recovered.  It  had  taken  hold,  however,  of  his 
system  and  nothing  but  home  would  cure  him.  In 
Shanghai  he  had  made  fortune  enough  to  retire.  Once 
in  England  again  he  would  never  leave  it  as  long  as 
he  lived. 

"  He  writes  one  or  two  pages  of  description  of  what 
May  must  be  in  England — the  fresh  sweet  green  of 
the  country  lanes,  the  cool  lawns,  the  old  grey  churches 
peeping  through  the  trees,  the  restful,  undulating 
country,  the  smell  of  the  hawthorn  and  blackthorn  at 
dawn  and  eve — those  are  his  words — the  poor  man's 
so  sick  for  home  that  he  has  turned  into  a  twopenny 
ha-penny  poet " 

"  I  think  it's  damned  pathetic,"  said  Tommy. 
"  Don't  you,  Uncle  Ephraim  ?  " 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,"  said  Quixtus  with  a  start. 

"  Don't  you  think  it's  pathetic  for  a  chap  stranded 
sick  in  a  God-forsaken  place  in  China,  to  write  that 
high  falutin'  stuff  about  England?  Clementina  read 
it  to  me.  It's  the  sort  of  thing  a  girl  of  fifteen  might 
have  written  as  a  school  essay — all  the  obvious  things 
you  know — and  it  meant  such  a  devil  of  a  lot  to  him — 
everything  on  earth.  It  fairly  made  me  choke.  I 
call  it  damned  pathetic." 


84       THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

Quixtus  said  in  a  dry  voice,  "  Yes,  it's  pathetic — 
it's  comic — it's  tragic — it's  melodramatic — it's  nos- 
talgic— it's  climatic Yes,"  he  added,  absently, 

"  it's  climatic." 

"  I  wonder  you  don't  say  it's  dyspeptic  and  psychic 
and  fantastic,"  said  Clementina,  snatching  an  old  hat 
from  the  bed.  "  Do  you  know  you've  talked  nothing 
but  rubbish  ever  since  you  entered  this  room?" 

"  Language,  my  dear  Clementina,"  he  quoted,  "  was 
given  to  us  to  conceal  our  thoughts." 

"  Bah !  "  said  Clementina.  She  held  out  her  hand 
abruptly.  "  Good-bye.  I'll  run  in  later,  Tommy,  and 
see  how  you're  getting  on." 

Quixtus  opened  the  door  for  her  to  pass  out  and 
returned  to  his  straight-backed  chair.  Tommy  handed 
him  a  box  of  cigarettes. 

"  Won't  you  smoke  ?  I  tried  one  cigarette  to-day 
for  the  first  time,  but  the  beastly  thing  tasted  horrid — 
just  as  if  I  were  smoking  oatmeal." 

Quixtus  declined  the  cigarette.  He  remained  silent, 
looking  gloomily  at  the  young,  eager  face  which 
masked  heaven  knows  what  faithlessness  and  guile. 
Being  in  league  with  Clementina,  whom  he  knew  now 
was  his  enemy,  Tommy  was  his  enemy  too.  And  yet, 
for  the  life  of  him,  he  could  not  carry  out  the  ma- 
lignant object  of  his  visit.  For  some  time  Tommy  di- 
rected the  conversation.  He  upbraided  the  treacher- 
ous English  climate  which  had  enticed  him  out  of 
doors,  and  then  stretched  him  on  a  bed  of  sickness. 
It  was  rough  luck.  Just  as  he  was  beginning  to  find 
himself  as  a  landscape  painter.  It  was  a  beautiful 
little  bit  of  river — all  pale  golden  lights  and  silver 
greys — now  that  May  was  beginning  and  all  the  trees 
in  early  leaf  he  could  not  get  that  spring  effect  again 
— could  not,  in  fact,  finish  the  picture.  By  the  way, 
his  uncle  had  not  heard  the  news.  The  little  picture 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA       85 

that  had  got  (by  a  mistake,  according  to  Clementina) 
into  a  corner  of  the  New  Gallery,  had  just  been  sold. 
Twenty-five  guineas.  Wasn't  it  ripping?  A  man 
called  Smythe,  whom  he  had  never  heard  of,  had 
bought  it. 

"  You  see,  it  wasn't  as  if  some  one  I  knew  had 
bought  it,  so  as  to  give  a  chap  some  encouragement," 
he  remarked  naively.  "  It  was  a  stranger  who  had  the 
whole  show  to  pick  from,  and  just  jumped  at  my  land- 
scape." 

Quixtus,  who  had  filled  up  by  monosyllables  the 
various  pauses  in  Tommy's  discourse,  at  last  rose  to 
take  his  leave.  He  had  tried  now  and  then  to  say 
what  he  had  come  to  say;  but  his  tongue  had  grown 
thick  and  the  roof  of  his  mouth  dry,  and  his  words 
literally  stuck  in  his  throat. 

"  It's  awfully  good  of  you,  Uncle  Ephraim,"  said 
Tommy,  "  to  have  come  to  see  me.  As  soon  as  I  get 
about  again,  I'll  try  to  do  something  jolly  for  you. 
There's  a  bit  of  wall  in  your  drawing-room  that's 
just  dying  for  a  picture.  And  I  say" — he  twisted  his 
boyish  face  whimsically  and  looked  at  him  with  a 
twinkle  in  his  dark  blue  eyes — "  I  don't  know  how  in 
the  world  it  has  happened — but  if  you  could  let  me 
draw  my  allowance  now  instead  of  the  first  of  the 
month " 

This  was  the  monthly  euphemism.  Against  his  will 
Quixtus  made  the  customary  reply. 

"  I'll  send  you  a  cheque  as  usual." 

"  You  are  a  good  sort,"  said  Tommy.  "  And  one 
of  these  days  I'll  get  there  and  you  won't  be  ashamed 
of  me." 

But  Quixtus  went  away  deeply  ashamed  of  himself, 
disgusted  with  his  weakness.  He  had  started  out  with 
the  fixed  and  diabolical  intention  of  telling  the  lad  that 
he  was  about  to  disinherit  him. 


86       THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

He  had  schemed  this  exquisite  cruelty  in  the  cool- 
ness of  solitude.  In  its  craft  and  subtlety  it  appeared 
peculiarly  perfect.  He  had  come  fully  prepared  to 
perform  the  deed  of  wickedness.  Not  only  had  Clemen- 
tina's gentle  presence  not  caused  him  to  waver  in  his 
design,  but  his  discovery  of  her  complicity  in  his  great 
betrayal  had  inflamed  his  desire  for  vengeance.  Yet 
when  the  time  came  for  the  wreaking  thereof,  his 
valour  was  of  the  oozing  nature  lamented  by  Bob 
Acres.  He  was  shocked  at  his  pusillanimity.  In  the 
middle  of  Sloane  Square  he  stopped  and  cursed  him- 
self, and  was  nearly  run  over  by  a  taxi-cab.  As  it  was 
empty  he  hailed  it,  and  continued  his  maledictions  in 
the  security  of  its  interior. 

Manifestly  there  was  something  wrong  in  his 
psychological  economy  which  no  reading  of  Lombroso 
or  the  Newgate  Calendar  could  remedy.  Or  was  he 
merely  suffering  from  a  lack  of  experience  in  evil 
doing?  Did  he  not  need  a  guide  in  the  Whole  Art 
and  Practice  of  Wickedness? 

He  walked  up  and  down  his  museum  in  anxious 
thought  At  last  a  smile  lit  up  his  gaunt  features. 
He  sat  down  and  wrote  notes  of  invitation  to  Huck- 
aby,  Vandermeer,  and  Billiter  to  dinner  on  the  follow- 
ing Tuesday. 


CHAPTER  VII 

QUIXTUS  received  them  in  the  museum,  a  long 
room  mainly  furnished  with  specimen  cases 
whose  glass  tops  formed  a  double  inclined 
plane,  diagrams  of  geological  formations,  and  book- 
cases full  of  pakeontological  literature — a  cold,  in- 
human, inhospitable  place.  The  three  looked  more 
dilapidated  than  ever.  Huckaby's  straggling  whiskers 
had  grown  deeper  into  his  cheek;  Vandermeer's  face 
had  become  foxier,  Billiter's  more  pallid  and  puffy. 
No  overcoats  hung  on  the  accustomed  pegs,  for  the 
cessation  of  the  eleemosynary  deposits  had  led,  among 
other  misfortunes,  to  the  pawning  of  these  once  in- 
dispensable articles  of  attire.  The  three  wore,  the-*4.- 
fore,  the  dismally  apologetic  appearance  of  the  man 
who  had  no  wredding  garm_  *•  The  only  one  of  them 
who  put  on  a  simulated  heartiness  of  address  was  Bil- 
liter.  He  thrust  out  a  shaky  hand — 

"  My  dear  Quixtus,  how  delightful " 

But  the  sight  of  his  host's  unwelcoming  face  chilled 
his  enthusiasm.  Quixtus  bowed  slightly  and  motioned 
them,  with  his  grave  courtesy,  to  comfortless  seats. 
He  commanded  the  situation.  So  might  a  scholar 
prince  of  the  school  of  Maccjiiavelli  have  received 
his  chief  poisoner,  strangler,  and  confidential  abductor. 
They  went  down  to  dinner.  It  was  not  an  hilarious 
meal.  The  conversation  which  used  to  flow  now  fell 
in  spattering  drops  amid  a  dead  silence. 

"  It's  a  fine  day/'  said  Quixtus. 

"  Very,"  said  Huckaby. 

87 


<J8       THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

"  Finer  than  yesterday,"  said  Vandermeer. 

"  It  promises  well  for  to-morrow,"  said  Billiter. 

"  It  always  breaks  its  promise,"  said  Quixtus 

"  H'm,"  said  Huckaby. 

They  made  up  for  the  lacking  feast  of  reason  by 
material  voracity.  A  microscopic  uplifting  of  Sprig^o 
the  butler's  eyebrows  betokened  wonder  at  their  Gar- 
gantuan helpings.  Vandermeer,  sitting  at  the  foot 
of  the  table  opposite  to  Quixtus,  bent  his  foxy  face 
downwards  till  the  circumference  of  the  plate  became 
the  horizon  of  his  universe.  Billiter  ate  with  stolid 
cynicism ;  Huckaby,  with  a  faint  air  of  bravado.  Once 
he  said: 

"  I'm  afraid  Quixtus  we  got  a  bit  merry  the  last 
time." 

"  It's  to  the  memory  of  that,"  replied  Quixtus, 
"  that  I  owe  the  pleasure  of  your  company  to-night." 

"  I'm  beastly  sorry "  began  Billiter. 

"  Pray  don't  mention  it,"  Quixtus  interrupted 
blandly.  "  I  hope  the  quails  are  to  your  liking." 

"  Fine,"  said  Vanderrrrcr,  without  raising  his  eyes 
from  his  plate. 

Once  more  reigned  the  spell  of  silence  which  op- 
pressed even  the  three  outcast  men ;  but  Quixtus,  hard- 
ened by  his  fixed  idea,  felt  curiously  at  his  ease.  He 
sat  in  his  chair  with  the  same  sense  of  security  and 
confidence  as  he  had  done  before  delivering  his  Presi- 
dential Address  at  the  meeting  of  the  Anthropological 
Society,  while  the  secretary  went  through  the  prelimi- 
nary formal  business.  The  preliminary  business  here 
was  the  meal.  As  soon,  hotwever,  as  the  port  had  been 
sent  round  and  Spriggs  had  retired,  Quixtus  addressed 
his  guests. 

"  Gentlemen,"  said  he,  and  met  in  turns  the  three 
pairs  of  questioning  eyes.  "  You  may  wonder  perhaps 
why  I  have  invited  you  to  dinner  to-night,  and  why, 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA       89 

you  being  thus  invited,  the  meal  has  not  been  warmed 
by  its  accustomed  glow  of  geniality.  It  is  my  duty 
and  my  pleasure  now  to  tell  you.  Hitherto  at  these 
dinners  we  have — let  us  say — worn  the  comic  mask. 
Beneath  its  rosy  and  smiling  exterior  we  have  dissimu- 
lated our  own  individual  sentiments.  We  have  been 
actors,  without  realising  it,  in  an  oft-repeated  comedy. 
Only  on  the  occasion  of  our  last  meeting  did  we  put 
aside  the  mask  and  show  to  each  other  what  we  were." 

"  I've  already  apologised,"  murmured  Billiter. 

"  My  dear  fellow,"  said  Quixtus,  raising  his  long 
thin  hand,  "  that's  the  last  thing  I  want  you  to  do.  In 
this  world  of  fraud  and  deceit  no  man  ought  to  regret 
having  bared  his  soul  honestly  to  the  world.  Now, 
gentlemen,  I  have  not  asked  you  here  to  insult  you  at 
my  own  table.  I  have  gathered  you  around  me  be- 
cause I  need  your  counsel  and  your  services  for  which 
I  hope  adequately  to  remunerate  you." 

A  quiver  of  animation  passed  over  the  three  faces. 
"Remunerate"  was  a  magic  word;  the  master-word 
of  an  incantation.  It  meant  money,  and  money  meant 
food  and  drink — especially  alcoholic  drink. 

"  I  know  I  am  speaking  for  my  two  friends,"  said 
Huckaby,  "  when  I  say  that  our  hearts  are  always  at 
your  service." 

"  The  heart,"  replied  Quixtus,  "  is  a  physiological 
organ  and  a  sentimental  delusion.  There  are  no  hearts 
in  that  sense.  You  know  as  well  as  I  do,  my  dear 
fellow,  that  there  are  no  such  things  as  love,  affection, 
honour,  loyalty  in  the  world.  Self-interest  and  self- 
indulgence  are  the  guiding  principles  of  conduct.  Gov- 
erned by  a  morbid  and  futile  tradition,  we  refuse  to 
regard  the  world  in  the  malevolent  light  of  day,  but 
see  it  artificially  through  the  hypocritical  coloured 
glasses  of  benevolence." 

Huckaby  and  Vandermeer,  who  retained  the  rudi- 


90       THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA, 

ments  of  an  intellect,  looked  at  their  once  simple- 
minded  and  tender-hearted  host  in  blank  bewilder- 
ment. They  hardly  knew  whether  to  wince  under  a 
highly-educated  gentleman's  cutting  irony,  or  to  accept 
these  remarkable  propositions  as  honest  statements  of 
opinion.  But  the  ironical  note  was  not  perceptible. 
Quixtus  spoke  in  the  same  gentle  tone  of  assurance 
as  he  would  have  used  when  entering  on  a  dissertation 
upon  the  dolichocephalic  skulls  in  his  collection  which 
had  been  found  in  a  long  barrow  in  Yorkshire.  He 
was  the  master  of  a  subject  laying  down  incontroverti- 
ble facts.  So  Huckaby  and  Vandermeer,  marvelling 
greatly,  stared  at  him  out  of  speculative  eyes.  Billiter, 
before  whom  the  incautious  decanter  of  port  had 
halted,  lost  the  drift  of  his  host's  philosophic  utter- 
ances. 

"  The  time  has  now  come/*  continued  Quixtus, 
relighting  (unsophisticated  soul!)  the  cigar  which  he 
had  allowed  to  go  out — "  the  time  has  now  come  for 
us  four  to  be  honest  with  one  another.  Up  to  a 
recent  date  I  was  a  slave  to  this  optical  delusion  of  tra- 
dition. But  things  have  happened  to  clear  my  eyes, 
and  to  make  me  frankly  confess  myself  no  better  than 
yourselves — an  entirely  unscrupulous  man." 

"  Pray  remember  that  I'm  a  sometime  Fellow " 

began  Huckaby. 

"  I'm  a  gentleman  of  good  family "  began  Bil- 
liter, who  had  understood  the  last  sentence. 

"  Yes.  Yes,"  replied  Quixtus,  interrupting  them. 
"  I  know.  That's  why  your  assistance  will  be  valu- 
able. I  need  the  counsels  of  men  of  breeding  and  edu- 
cation. I  find  from  my  reading  that  the  vulgar  crimi- 
nal would  be  useless  for  my  purpose.  Now,  you  all 
have  trusted  men  who  have  failed  you.  So  have  I. 
You  have  felt  the  cowardly  blows  of  Fortune.  So 
have  I.  You  have  no  vestige  of  faith  in  your  fellow 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA      911 

man — you  even  believed  me  to  be  a  party  to  my  late 
partner's  frauds — you  can  have,  I  say,  no  faith  left  in 
humanity.  Neither  have  I.  You  are  Ishmaels,  your 
hand  against  every  man.  So  am  I.  You  would  like 
to  be  revenged  upon  your  fellow  creatures.  So  would  I. 
You  have  passed  your  lives  in  pursuing  evil  rather 
than  good.  You,  in  a  word,  are  entirely  unscrupulous. 
If  you  will  acknowledge  this  we  can  proceed  to  busi- 
ness. If  not,  we  will  part  finally  as  soon  as  this  agree- 
able evening  is  at  an  end.  Gentlemen,  what  do  you 
say?" 

Billiter,  looking  upon  the  wine  while  it  was  red — 
there  was  not  much  left  to  show  the  colour — laughed 
wheezily  and  shortly. 

"  I  suppose  we're  wrong  'uns,"  said  he.  "  At  least 
I  am.  I  own  up." 

Vandermeer  said  bitterly :  "  When  a  man  is  hunted 
by  poverty  he  can't  run  straight,  for  at  the  end  of  the 
straight  path  is  death." 

"And  you,  Huckaby?" 

"  I  also  have  bolted  into  a  drain  or  two  in  my 
time." 

"  Good,"  said  Quixtus.  "  Now  we  understand  one 
another." 

"  You  may  understand  us,"  said  Huckaby,  tugging 
at  his  untidy  beard,  "  but  I'm  hanged,  drawn,  and 
quartered  if  we  understand  you." 

"  I  thought  I  had  made  myself  particularly  clear," 
said  Quixtus. 

"  For  my  part,"  said  Billiter,  "  I  can't  make  out 
what  you're  getting  at  except  to  make  us  confess  that 
we're  wrong  'uns." 

"  Dear,  dear,"  said  Quixtus. 

"  I  can't  understand  it,"  said  Vandermeer,  looking 
intently  at  him  across  the  table  out  of  his  little  sharp 
eyes.  "  I  can't  understand  it,  unless  it  is  that  you 


92       THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

have  some  big  scoop  on  and  want  us  to  come  into  it, 
so  as  to  do  the  dirty  work.  If  that's  so  I'm  on,  so 
long  as  it's  safe.  But  I've  steered  clear  of  the  law  up 
to  now  and  have  no  desire  to  run  the  risk  of  penal 
servitude." 

"  Oh  Lord  no !  "  cried  Billiter  with  a  shiver. 

Quixtus  pressed  the  burning  stump  of  his  cigar 
against  his  plate  and  looked  up  with  a  smile. 

"  Please  make  your  minds  easy  on  that  score.  I 
have  been  reading  criminology  lately  with  consider- 
able interest,  and  I  have  gone  through  a  volume  or  two 
of  the  Newgate  Calendar,  and  the  result  of  my  reading 
is  the  conviction  that  crime  is  folly.  It  is  a  disease. 
It  is  also  vulgar.  No,  I  have  no  desire  to  increase  my 
personal  possessions  in  any  way;  neither  do  I  contem- 
plate the  commission  of  acts  of  violence  against  the 
person  or  the  destruction  of  property.  Anything  there- 
fore that  comes  within  the  category  of  crime  may  be 
dismissed  from  our  consideration." 

"  Then  in  the  name  of  Gehenna,"  exclaimed  Huck- 
aby,  "  what  is  it  that  you  want  us  to  do  ?  " 

"  It  is  very  simple,"  said  Quixtus.  "  I  may  plot  out 
an  attractive  scheme  of  wickedness,  but  the  circum- 
stances of  my  early  training  have  left  me  without  the 
power  to  execute  it.  I  should  like  to  call  on  any  one 
of  you  for  guidance,  perhaps  practical  assistance.  I 
may  want  to  see  and  hear  of  wickedness  going  on 
around  me.  I  would  count  on  you  to  gratify  my  curi- 
osity. Lastly,  not  having  an  inventive  mind,  it  being 
rather  analytic  than  synthetic,  I  should  welcome  any 
suggestions  that  you  might  bring  me." 

"  It's  a  rum  go,"  said  Billiter,  "  but  I'm  on,  so  long 
as  there's  money  in  it." 

"  There  will  be  money  in  it,"  said  Quixtus. 

"  Then  I'm  on,  too,"  said  Vandermeer. 

"  You  will  find  us,  my  dear  Quixtus,"  said  Huck- 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA       93 

abyr  "  your  very  devoted  Familiars — your  Oliviers  le 
Daim,  your  Eminences  Crises,  your  ames  -damnees. 
We'll  be  your  ministering  evil  spirits,  your  genii  from 
Eblis.  It's  a  new  occupation  for  a  Fellow  of  Corpus 
Christi  College,  Cambridge,  but  it's  not  unalluring. 
And  now,  as  Billiter  has  finished  the  decanter,  may  I 
take  the  liberty  of  asking  for  another  bottle,  so  that 
Vandermeer  and  I  can  drink  to  the  health  of  our 
chief." 

"  With  all  the  pleasure  in  life,"  said  Quixtus. 

As  soon  as  the  three  newly  constituted  Evil  Genii 
were  out  of  earshot  of  the  house,  they  stopped  on  the 
pavement  with  one  accord  and  burst  into  unseemly 
laughter. 

"Did  you  ever  hear  anything  like  it?"  cried 
Billiter. 

"  He's  as  mad  as  Bedlam,"  said  Vandermeer. 

"  A  sort  of  inverted  Knight  of  the  Round  Table," 
said  Huckaby.  "  He  yearns  to  ride  abroad  commit- 
ting human  wrongs." 

"  Are  we  to  call  for  orders  every  day  like  the 
butcher,  the  baker,  and  the  greengrocer?"  said  Van- 
dermeer. 

*'  He  was  so  sane  at  first,"  said  Vandermeer,  "  that 
I  really  thought  he  had  some  definite  scoop  in  view. 
But  it  all  turns  out  to  be  utter  moonshine." 

"  If  he  doesn't  want  to  thieve  or  murder  or  paint  the 
town  red,"  said  Billiter,  "  what  the  blazes  in  the  way 
of  wickedness  is  left  for  him  to  do?  " 

"  It's  moonshine,"  repeated  Vandermeer. 

"If  it  wasn't,"  said  Huckaby,  " none  of  us  would 
touch  it.  We  can't  take  the  matter  seriously.  We're 
just  lending  ourselves  to  a  farce,  that's  all." 

"  Naturally,"  Billiter  agreed.  "  We  must  humour 
him." 


94       THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

They  walked  on  slowly,  discussing  the  unprece- 
dented situation.  They  were  unanimous  in  the  opinion 
that  the  poor  gentleman  had  gone  distraught.  They 
had  all  noticed  signs  of  his  affliction  on  the  last  occa- 
sion of  their  dining  at  his  table.  If  he  had  been  in 
his  right  senses  then,  he  would  surely  not  have  be- 
haved with  such  discourtesy.  They  agreed  to  forgive 
him  for  turning  them  out  of  doors. 

"  It's  lucky  for  him,"  said  Huckaby,  "  that  he  has 
three  old  friends  like  ourselves.  He  might  have  got 
into  other  hands,  and  then — God  help  him.  My  only 
reason  for  falling  in  with  his  mood  was  in  order  to 
protect  him  from  himself — and  from  sharks  and  blood 
suckers." 

Billiter  and  Vandermeer  declared  that  they,  too,  had 
acted  only  out  of  a  sense  of  loyalty  to  their  old  and 
distracted  friend.  They  protested  so  hard  that  their 
tongues  clave  to  the  roofs  of  their  mouths,  and  each 
acknowledged  his  thirst.  They  turned  into  the  bar- 
parlour  of  the  first  public-house,  where  they  called  for 
whisky,  and,  each  man  having  found  a  hat  as  good  a 
substitute  for  the  sacks  of  Joseph's  brethren  as  an 
overcoat,  they  continued  to  call  for  whisky,  and  to 
drink  it  until  the  tavern  closed  for  the  night.  By  that 
time  they  glowed  with  conscious  virtue.  Huckaby 
swore  that  he  would  permit  no  ruddy  lobsters  to  dig 
their  claws  into  Quixtus's  sacred  person. 

"  Here's  poor  dear  old  chap's  health,  drunk  in  very 
last  drop,"  cried  Billiter,  enthusiastically  draining  his 
last  glass. 

The  tragedy  of  Quixtus's  loss  of  reason  reduced 
Vandermeer  to  tears.  He  was  sorrowful  in  his  cups. 
He,  Vandermeer,  had  no  one  to  love  him ;  but  Quixtus 
should  never  find  himself  in  that  desolate  predicament, 
as  he,  Vandermeer,  would  love  him  like  a  friend,  a 
brother,  like  a  silver-haired  maiden  aunt. 


95 

"  I've  had  a  silver-haired  maiden  aunt  myself,"  he 
wailed. 

While  Billiter  comforted  him,  Huckaby  again 
warned  them  against  ruddy  lobsters.  If  they  would 
swear  to  join  him  in  a  league  to  defend  their  patron 
and  benefactor,  he  would  accept  their  comradeship.  If 
they  preferred  to  be  ruddy  lobsters,  he  would  wash  his 
hands  of  them.  They  repudiated  the  crustacean  sug- 
gestion. They  were  more  Quixtus's  friends  than  he. 
A  quarrel  nearly  broke  out,  each  claiming  to  be  the 
most  loyal  and  disinterested  friend  Quixtus  ever  had 
in  his  life.  Finally  they  were  reconciled  and  wrung 
each  other  warmly  by  the  hand.  The  barman  called 
closing  time  and  pushed  them  gently  into  the  street. 
They  staggered  devio.usly  to  their  several  garrets  and 
went  to  bed,  each  certain  that  he  had  convinced  the 
two  others  of  his  beauty  and  nobility  of  soul. 

Vandermeer  was  the  first  of  the  Evil  Genii  to  be 
summoned.  Quixtus  laid  before  him  the  case  of 
Tommy  and  the  failure  of  his  diabolical  project. 
Vandermeer  listened  attentively.  There  was  method 
after  all  in  his  patron's  madness.  He  wished  to  do 
some  hurt  to  his  nephew  for  the  sheer  sake  of  evil- 
doing.  As  far  as  the  intention  went  he  was  seriously 
trying  to  carry  out  his  malevolent  principles.  It  was 
not  all  moonshine.  Vandermeer  thought  quickly.  He 
was  the  craftiest  of  the  three,  and  that  perhaps  was 
why  Quixtus  had  instinctively  chosen  him  for  the  first 
adventure.  He  saw  profit  in  humouring  the  misan- 
thrope, though  he  smiled  inwardly  at  the  simplicity  of 
his  idea. 

"  There's  nothing  particularly  diabolical  in  telling  a 
young  fellow  with  a  brilliant  career  before  him  that 
you're  going  to  cut  him  out  of  your  will." 

"  Isn't  there  ? "    said    Quixtus,    with    an    air    of 


96       THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

disappointment.     "  What  then  would  you  suggest  ?  " 

"  First,"  answered  Vandermeer,  "  what  do  you  think 
would  be  a  fair  price  for  a  suggestion  ?  "  He  regarded 
him  with  greedy  eyes.  "  Would  twenty  pounds  be  out 
of  the  way?" 

"  I'll  give  you  twenty  pounds,"  said  Quixtus. 

Vandermeer  drew  in  his  breath  quickly,  as  a  man 
does  who  wins  a  bet  at  long  odds. 

"  There  are  all  sorts  of  things  you  can  do.  The 
obvious  one  would  be  to  stop  his  allowance.  But  I 
take  it  you  want  something  more  artistic  and  subtle. 
Wait — let  me  think — "  He  covered  his  eyes  with  his 
hand  for  a  moment.  "  Look.  How  will  this  do  ?  It 
strikes  me  as  infernally  wicked.  You  say  he  is  de- 
voted to  his  art.  Well,  make  him  give  it  up " 

"Excellent!  Excellent!"  cried  Quixtus.  "But 
how?" 

"  Can  you  get  him  into  any  business  office  in  the 
City?" 

"  Yes.  My  friend  Griffiths  of  the  Anthropological 
Society  is  secretary  of  the  Star  Assurance  Coy.  A 
word  from  me  would  get  the  boy  into  the  office." 

"  Good.  Then  tell  him  that  unless  he  accepts  this 
position  within  a  month  and  promises  never  to  touch 
a  paint-brush  again,  he  will  not  receive  a  penny  from 
you  either  during  your  lifetime  or  after  your  death. 
In  this  way  you  will  bring  him  up  against  am  infernal 
temptation,  and  whichever  way  he  decides  he'll  be 
wretched.  I  call  that  a  pretty  scheme." 

"  It's  an  inspiration  of  genius,"  exclaimed  Quixtus 
excitedly.  "  I'll  write  the  cheque  now."  He  sat  down 
to  his  desk  and  pulled  out  his  cheque-book.  "  And 
you  will  go  at  once  to  my  nephew — I'll  give  you  a 
card  of  introduction — and  acquaint  him  with  my  de- 
cision." 

"  What  ?  "  cried  Vandermeer. 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA       97 

Quixtus  calmly  repeated  the  last  sentence.  Vander- 
meer's  face  went  a  shade  paler.  He  wrung  his  hands, 
which  were  naturally  damp,  until  they  grew  as  blood- 
less as  putty.  He  had  never  done  any  wanton  harm 
in  his  life.  All  the  meanness  and  sharp-dealing  he  had 
practised  were  but  a  poor  devil's  shifts  to  fill  an  empty 
belly.  Ouixtus's  behest  covered  him  with  dismay.  It 
was  unexpected.  It  is  one  thing  to  suggest  to  a  crazy 
and  unpractical  patron  a  theoretical  fantasia  of  wicked- 
ness, and  another  to  be  commanded  -to  put  it  oneself 
into  execution.  It  was  less  moonshine  than  ever. 

"  Don't  you  want  to  do  it  ?  "  asked  Quixtus,  unwit- 
tingly balancing  temptation,  in  the  form  of  a  fat 
cheque-book,  in  his  hand. 

Vandermeer  fell.  What  wolf-eyed  son  of  Hagar 
would  have  resisted? 

"  I  think,"  said  he,  with  a  catch  in  his  throat,  "  that 
if  the  suggestion  alone  is  worth  twenty  pounds,  the 
carrying  out  of  it  is  worth — say — ten  more." 

"  Very  well,"  said  Quixtus ;  "  but,"  he  added  drily, 
"  the  next  time  I  hope  you'll  give  an  estimate  to  cover 
the  whole  operation." 

The  second  of  the  three  to  receive  a  summons  from 
the  Master  was  Billiter. 

"  You  know  something  about  horse-racing,"  re- 
marked Quixtus. 

"  What  I  don't  isn't  worth  knowing.  I've  chucked 
away  a  fortune  in  acquiring  the  knowledge." 

"  I  want  you  to  accompany  me  to  race-meetings  and 
show  me  the  wickedness  of  the  turf,"  said  Quixtus. 

"  So  that's  my  little  job,  is  it?  " 

"  That's  your  little  job." 

"  I  think  I  can  give  you  a  run  for  your  money," 
remarked  Billiter,  a  pale  sunshine  of  intelligence  over- 
spreading his  puffy  features.  "  But — "  he  paused. 

"But  what?" 


98       THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

"  I  can't  go  racing  with  you  in  this  kit." 

"  I  will  provide  you,"  said  Quixtus,  "  with  whatever 
costume  you  think  necessary  for  the  purpose." 

Billiter  went  his  way  exulting  and  .spent  the  re- 
mainder of  the  afternoon  in  tracking  a  man  down 
from  his  office  in  Soho,  his  house  in  Peckham,  several 
taverns  on  the  Surrey  side  of  the  river,  to  a  quiet  cafe 
in  Regent  Street.  The  man  was  a  red- faced,  thick- 
necked,  hard,  fishy-eyed  villain  with  a  mouth  like  the 
slit  of  a  letter-box,  and  went  by  the  name  (which  he 
wore  inscribed  on  his  hat  at  race-meetings)  of  Old 
Joe  Jenks.  Billiter  drew  him  into  a  corner  and  whis- 
pered gleeful  tidings  into  his  ear.  After  which  Old 
Joe  Jenks  drew  Billiter  to  a  table  and  filled  him  up 
with  the  most  seductive  drinks  the  cafe  could  provide. 

Before  the  lessons  in  horse-racing  under  Billiter's 
auspices  began — for  gorgeous  raiment,  appropriate  to 
Sandown  and  Kempton,  like  Rome,  is  not  built  in  a 
day — Quixtus  sent  for  the  remaining  Evil  Genius. 

"  What  have  you  to  suggest  ?  "  he  asked  after  some 
preliminary  and  explanatory  conversation. 

A  humorous  twinkle  came  into  Huckaby's  eye,  and 
a  smile  played  round  his  lips  beneath  the  straggling 
brushwood  of  hair. 

"  I  have  a  great  idea,"  he  said. 

"What  is  it?" 

"  Break  a  woman's  heart,"  said  Huckaby. 

Quixtus  reflected  gravely.  It  would  indeed  be  a 
charming,  enticing  piece  of  wickedness. 

"  I  shouldn't  have  to  marry  her?  "  he  asked  in  some 
concern. 

"  Heaven  forbid." 

"  I  like  it,"  said  Quixtus,  leaning  back  in  his  chair 
and  smoothing  his  scrappy  moustache  with  his  lean 
fingers.  "  I  like  it  very  much.  The  only  difficulty  is : 
where  can  I  find  the  woman  whose  heart  I  can  break  ?  " 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA       99 

'Take  a  tour  abroad,"  said  Huckaby.  "On  the 
Continent  of  Europe  there  are  thousands  of  English 
women  only  waiting-  to  have  their  hearts  broken." 

"  That  may  be  true,"  said  Quixtus;  "  but  how  shall 
I  obtain  the  necessary  introductions  ?  " 

"  I,"  cried  Huckaby,  raising  a  bony  hand  that  pro- 
truded through  a  very  frayed  and  dirty  shirt-cuff.  "  I, 
Eustace  Huckaby,  will  reassume  my  air  of  academical 
distinction  and  will  accompany  you  into  the  pays  du 
tendre  and  introduce  you  to  any  woman  you  like.  In 
other  words,  my  dear  Quixtus,  although  I  may  not 
look  like  a  Lothario  at  the  present  moment,  I  have 
had  considerable  experience  in  amatory  adventures — 
and  I'm  sure  you  would  find  my  assistance  valuable." 

Quixtus  reflected  again.  Aware  of  his  limitations, 
he  recognised  the  futility  of  going  alone  on  a  heart- 
breaking expedition  among  strange  even  though  ex- 
pectant females.  But  would  Huckaby  be  an  ideal  com- 
panion? Huckaby  was  self-assertive,  not  to  say  im- 
pudent, in  manner ;  and  Huckaby  had  certain  shocking 
habits.  On  the  other  hand,  perhaps  the  impudence 
was  the  very  quality  needed  in  the  quest;  and  as  for 
the  habits —  He  decided. 

"  Very  well.  I  accept  your  proposal — on  one  con- 
dition. What  that  is  you  doubtless  can  guess." 

"  I  can,"  said  Huckaby.  "  I  give  you  my  word  of 
honour  that  you  will  never  see  me  otherwise  than 
sober." 

An  undertaking  which  would  not  preclude  him  from 
taking  a  bottle  of  whisky  to  bed  whenever  he  felt  so 
inclined. 

"  We  had  better  start  at  once,"  said  Huckaby,  after 
some  necessary  discussion  of  the  question  of  wardrobe. 

"  I  must  wait,"  replied  Quixtus,  "  until  I've  attended 
some  race-meetings  with  Billiter." 

Huckaby   frowned.      He   was   not   aware   that  to 


ioo     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

Billiter  had  already  been  assigned  a  sphere  of  action. 

"  I  don't  want  to  say  anything  unfriendly.  But  if 
I  were  you  I  shouldn't  trust  Billiter  too  implicitly. 
He's  a — "  he  paused — being  sober  and  serious,  he 
rejected  the  scarlet  epithet  which,  when  used  in  allu- 
sion to  his  friends,  had  given  colour  to  his  gayer 
speech — "  He's  a  man  who  knows  too  much  of  the 
game." 

"  My  dear  Huckaby,"  said  Quixtus.  "  I  shall  never 
trust  another  human  being  as  long  as  I  live." 

That  evening,  somewhat  wondering  that  he  had 
heard  no  news  of  Tommy  or  of  Vandermeer,  he  un- 
locked the  iron  safe  in  his  museum  and  took  out  his 
will.  He  lit  a  candle  and  set  it  by  the  hearth.  Now 
was  the  time  to  destroy  the  benevolent  document.  He 
put  it  near  the  flame;  then  drew  it  back.  A  new 
thought  occurred  to  him.  To  practise  on  his  nephew 
the  same  trick  as  his  uncle  had  played  upon  him  was 
mere  unintelligent  plagiarism.  He  felt  a  sudden  dis- 
dain for  the  merely  mimetic  in  wickedness. 

"  I  will  be  original,"  said  he.  "  Yes,  original."  He 
repeated  the  word  as  a  formula  both  of  consolation 
and  incentive,  and,  blowing  out  the  candle,  put  the 
will  back  into  the  safe. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

1  IT     ORD,  have  mercy  upon  us !  "  cried  Clementina. 

I  The  pious  ejaculation  was  in  the  nature 

*  J  of  a  reply  to  Miss  Etta  Concannon,  the 
fragile  slip  of  a  girl  whose  portrait  she  had  painted 
and  in  whose  cornflower-blue  eyes  she  had  caught 
the  haunting  fear.  There  was  no  fear,  however,  in 
the  eyes  to-day.  They  were  bright,  direct,  and  abnor- 
mally serious.  She  had  just  announced  her  intention 
of  becoming  a  hospital  nurse.  Whereupon  Clementina 
had  cried :  "  Lord,  have  mercy  upon  us !  " 

Now  it  must  be  stated  that  Etta  Concannon  had 
bestowed  on  an  embarrassed  Clementina  her  young 
and  ardent  affection;  secretly,  during  the  sittings  for 
the  portrait  which  her  father  had  commissioned  Clem- 
entina to  paint  as  a  wedding  present,  and  openly,  when 
the  sittings  were  ended  and  she  called  upon  Clemen- 
tina as  a  friend.  In  the  first  flush  of  this  avowed 
adoration  she  would  send  shy  little  notes,  asking 
whether  she  might  come  to  the  studio  to  tea.  As  she 
lived  quite  close  by,  the  missives  were  despatched  by 
hand.  Clementina,  disturbed  in  the  midst  of  her  paint- 
ing, would  tear  a  ragged  corner  from  the  first  bit  of 
paper  her  eyes  fell  upon — note-paper,  brown-paper, 
cartridge-paper — once  it  was  sand-paper — scribble 
"  Yes  "  on  it  with  a  bit  of  charcoal  and  send  it  out 
to  the  waiting  messenger.  At  last  she  was  driven  to 
desperation. 

"  My  good  child,"  she  said,  "can't  you  drop  in  to 
tea  without  putting  me  to  this  elaborate  correspond- 
ence?" 

101 


102     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

Etta  Concannon  thought  she  could,  and  thencefor- 
ward came  to  tea  unheralded,  and,  eventually  such 
were  her  powers  of  seduction  that  she  enticed  Clem- 
entina to  her  own  little  den  in  her  father's  house  in 
Cheyne  Walk — a  fairy  den  all  water-colour  and  gossa- 
mer very  much  like  herself,  in  which  Clementina  gave 
the  impression  of  an  ogress  who  had  blundered  in  by 
mistake.  It  was  on  the  visit  that  Clementina  repudi- 
ated the  name  of  Miss  Wing.  She  hated  and  loathed 
it.  On  Etta's  lips  it  suggested  a  prim,  starched  gov- 
erness— the  conventional  French  caricature  of  the 
English  Old  Maid  with  long  teeth  and  sharp  elbows. 
She  might  be  an  old  maid,  but  she  wasn't  a  prim 
governess.  Everybody  called  her  Clementina.  Upon 
which,  to  her  professed  discomfort,  Etta  threw  her 
arms  round  her  neck  and  kissed  her  and  called  her  a 
darling.  Why  Clementina  wasted  her  time  over  this 
chit  of  a  girl  she  was  at  a  loss  to  conjecture.  She  was 
about  as  much  use  in  the  world  as  a  rainbow.  Yet 
for  some  fool  reason  (her  own  expression)  Clemen- 
tina encouraged  her,  and  felt  less  grim  in  her  com- 
pany. The  odd  part  of  their  intercourse  was  that  the 
one  thing  under  heaven  they  did  not  talk  about  was 
the  bullet-headed,  bull-necked  young  man  to  whom 
Etta  was  engaged — not  until  one  day  when,  in  response 
to  the  following  epistle,  Clementina  brusquely  dis- 
missed her  sitter,  skewered  on  a  battered  hat,  and 
rushed  round  to  Cheyne  Walk. 

"  MY  DEAREST,  DEAREST  CLEMENTINA, — Do  come 
to  me.  I  am  in  abject  misery.  The  very  worst  has 
happened.  I  would  come  to  you,  but  I'm  not  fit  to  be 
seen.  Your  own  unhappy 

"  ETTA." 

"  My  poor  child,"  cried  Clementina,  as  she  entered 
the  bower  and  beheld  a  very  dim  and  watery  fairy 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     103 

sobbing  on  a  couch.  "  Who  has  been  doing  this  to 
you?" 

"  It's  R-Raymond,"  said  Etta,  chokingly. 

To  her  astonishment  Clementina  found  herself  sit- 
ting on  the  couch  with  her  arms  round  the  girl.  Now 
and  then  she  did  the  most  idiotic  things  without 
knowing  in  the  least  why  she  did  them.  In  this  posi- 
tion she  listened  to  Etta's  heartrending  story.  It  was 
much  involved,  here  and  there  incoherent,  told  with 
singular  disregard  of  chronological  sequence.  When 
properly  pieced  together  and  shorn  of  irrelevance,  this 
is  what  it  amounted  to : 

Certain  doings  of  the  bullet-headed  young  man, 
doings  not  at  all  creditable — mean  and  brutal  doings, 
indeed — had  reached  the  ears  of  Etta's  father.  Now 
Etta's  father  was  a  retired  admiral,  and  Etta  the  be- 
loved child  of  his  old  age.  The  report  of  Captain 
Hilyard's  doings  had  wounded  him  in  his  weakest 
spot.  In  a  fine  fury  he  telephonically  commanded  the 
alleged  wrongdoer  to  wait  upon  him  without  delay. 
Captain  Hilyard  obeyed.  The  scene  of  the  interview 
was  a  private  room  in  the  service  club  to  which  Ad- 
miral Concannon  belonged.  Admiral  Concannon  went 
straight  to  the  point — it  is  an  uncomfortable  charac- 
teristic of  British  admirals.  The  bullet-headed  young 
man  not  being  able  to  deny  the  charges  brought  against 
him,  Admiral  Concannon  expressed  himself  in  such 
terms  as  are  only  polished  to  their  brightest  perfection 
on  the  quarter-deck  of  a  man-of-war.  The  young 
man  showed  resentment — amazing  impudence,  accord- 
ing to  the  Admiral — whereupon  the  Admiral  con- 
signed him  to  the  devil  and  charged  him  never  to 
let  him  (the  Admiral)  catch  him  (the  bullet-headed 
young  man)  lifting  his  scoundrelly  eyes  again  to  an 
innocent  young  girl.  Admiral  Concannon  came  home 
and  told  his  daughter  as  much  of  the  tale  of  turpitude 


io4     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

as  was  meet  for  her  ears.  Captain  Hilyard  repaired 
forthwith  in  unrighteous  wrath  to  his  quarters  and 
packed  off  Etta's  letters,  with  a  covering  note  in  which 
he  insinuated  that  he  was  not  sorry  to  have  seen  the 
last  of  her  amiable  family.  It  had  all  happened  that 
day. 

Hence  the  tears. 

"  I  thought  you  wrote  me  that  the  worst  had  hap- 
pened," said  Clementina. 

"Well,  hasn't  it?" 

"  Good  Lord !  "  cried  Clementina.  "  It's  the  very 
best  thing  that  ever  happened  to  you  in  all  your  born 
days." 

In  the  course  of  a  week  Clementina  brought  the 
sorrowing  damsel  round  to  her  own  way  of  think- 
ing. 

"  Do  you  know,"  said  Etta,  "  I  used  to  be  rather 
afraid  of  him." 

"  Any  fool  could  see  that,"  said  Clementina. 

"  Did  you  guess  ? "  This  with  wide-open  corn- 
flower eyes. 

"  Look  at  your  portrait  and  you'll  see,"  said  Clem- 
entina, mindful  of  the  avalanche  of  memories  which 
the  portrait  of  Tommy  Burgrave's  rough-and-ready 
criticism  of  the  bullet-headed  young  man  had  started 
on  its  overwhelming  career.  "  Have  you  ever  looked 
at  it?" 

"  Of  course  I  have." 

"  To  look  at  a  thing  and  to  see  it,"  remarked  Clem- 
entina, "  are  two  entirely  different  propositions.  For 
instance,  you  looked  at  that  young  man,  but  you  didn't 
see  him.  Yet  your  soul  saw  him  and  was  afraid. 
Your  father,  too — I  can't  understand  what  he  was 
about  when  he  consented  to  the  engagement." 

"  Captain  Hilyard's  father  and  he  were  old  mess- 
mates," said  Etta. 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     105 

"Old  messmakers!"  snapped  Clementina.  "And 
what  made  you  accept  him  ?  " 

Etta  looked  mournful.    "  I  don't  know." 

"  The  next  time  you  engage  yourself  to  a  young 
man,  just  be  sure  that  you  do  know.  I  suppose  this 
one  said,  '  Dilly,  dilly,  come  and  be  killed/  and  you 
went  like  the  foolish  little  geese  in  the  nursery  rhyme." 

"  They  were  ducks,  dear,"  laughed  Etta,  taking 
Clementina's  grim  face  between  her  dainty  hands. 
"  Ducks  like  you." 

Clementina  suffered  the  caress  with  a  wry  mouth. 

"  I  think  you're  getting  better,"  she  said.  "  And 
I'm  jolly  glad  of  it.  To  have  one  young  idiot  on  my 
hands  ill  with  congestion  of  the  lungs  and  another 
ill  with  congestion  of  the  heart — both  at  the  same  time 
— is  more  than  I  bargained  for.  I  suppose  you  think 
I'm  a  sort  of  Sister  of  Charity.  Why  don't  you  do 
as  your  father  tells  you  and  go  down  to  your  Aunt 
What's-her-name  in  Somersetshire?  " 

Etta  made  a  grimace.  "  Aunt  Elmira  would  drive 
me  crazy.  You're  much  more  whoksome  for  me. 
And  as  for  father" — she  tossed  her  pretty  head — "  he 
has  to  do  what  he's  told." 

So  Etta  remained  in  town,  her  convalescence  syn- 
chronising with  that  of  Tommy  Burgrave.  Clemen- ! 
tina  began  to  find  time  to  breathe  and  to  make  up 
arrears  of  work.  As  soon  as  Tommy  was  able  to  take 
his  walks  abroad,  and  Etta  to  seek  distraction  in  the 
society  of  her  acquaintance,  Clementina  shut  herself 
up  in  her  studio,  forbidding  the  young  people  to  come 
near  her,  and  for  a  week  painted  the  livelong  day. 
At  last,  one  morning  two  piteous  letters  were  smug- 
gled almost  simultaneously  into  the  studio. 

" .  .  .  I  haven't  seen  you  for  months  and 
months.  Do  let  me  come  to  dinner  to-night.  .  .  . 
TOMMY/' 


106     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

"...  Oh,  darling,  DO  come  to  tea  this  after- 
noon. .  .  .  ETTA." 

"  I  shall  go  and  paint  in  the  Sahara,"  cried  Clemen- 
tina. But  she  seized  two  dirty  scraps  of  paper  and 
scrawled  on  them: 

"  Lord,  yes,  child,  come  to  dinner." 

"  Lord,  yes,  child,  I'll  come  to  tea." 
And  having  folded  them  crookedly  despatched  them 
to  her  young  friends. 

It  was  during  this  visit  of  Clementina  to  the  fairy 
bower  in  Cheyne  Walk  that  Etta  informed  her  of  her 
intention  of  becoming  a  hospital  nurse. 

"  Lord,  have  mercy  upon  us !  "  cried  Clementina. 

"  I  don't  see  why  I  shouldn't,"  said  Etta. 

"  The  idea  is  preposterous,"  replied  Clementina. 
"  What  need  have  you  to  work  for  your  living?  " 

"  I  want  to  do  something  useful  in  the  world." 

'''  You'll  do  much  better  by  remaining  ornamental," 
said  Clementina.  "  It's  only  when  a  woman  is  as  ugly 
as  sin  and  as  poor  as  charity  that  she  need  be  useful ; 
that's  to  say  while  she's  unmarried.  When  she's  mar- 
ried she  has  got  as  much  as  she  can  do  to  keep  her 
husband  and  children  in  order.  A  girl  like  you  with 
plenty  of  money  and  the  devil's  own  prettiness  has  got 
to  stay  at  home  and  fulfil  her  destiny." 

Etta,  sitting  on  the  window  seat,  looked  at  the 
Thames,  seen  in  patches  of  silver  through  the  fresh 
greenery  of  the  Embankment  trees. 

"  I  know  what  you're  thinking  of,  dear,"  she  said, 
with  the  indulgent  solemnity  of  the  Reverend  Mother 
of  a  Convent,  "  but  I  shall  never  marry." 

"  Rubbish,"  said  Clementina. 

"  I've  made  up  my  mind,  quite  made  up  my  mind." 

Clementina  sighed.  Youth  is  so  solemn,  so  futile, 
so  like  the  youth  of  all  the  generations  that  have 
passed  away.  The  child  was  suffering  from  one  of  the 


(I.KMEXTIXA    LOOKED    AT   HER    FOR    FULL    TEX    SECONDS    WITH    THE 
EYES    OF    A    MOSES   OX   MOUXT   XEBO. 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     107 

natural  sequelae  of  a  ruptured  engagement.  Once 
maidens  in  her  predicament  gat  them  into  nunneries 
and  became  nuns  and  that  was  the  end  of  them. 
Whether  they  regretted  their  rash  act  or  not,  who  can 
say?  Nowadays  they  rush  into  philanthropic  or  polit- 
ical activity,  contriving  happy  evenings  for  coster- 
mongers  or  unhappy  afternoons  for  Cabinet  Ministers. 
The  impulse  driving  them  to  nunnery,  Whitechapel,  or 
Caxton  Hall  has  always  been  merely  a  reaction  of  sex; 
and  the  duration  of  the  period  of  reaction  is  propor- 
tionate to  the  degree  of  brokenness  of  the  heart.  As 
soon  as  the  heart  is  mended,  sex  has  her  triumphant 
way  again  and  leaps  in  response  to  the  eternal  foolish- 
ness that  the  maiden  blushes  to  read  in  the  eyes  of  a 
comely  creature  in  trousers.  This  Clementina  knew,  as 
all  those — and  only  those — whose  youth  is  behind  them 
know  it;  and  so,  when  Etta  with  an  air  of  cold  finality 
said  that  she  had  made  up  her  mind,  Clementina 
sighed.  It  was  so  ludicrously  pathetic.  Etta's  heart 
had  not  even  been  broken;  it  had  not  sustained  the 
wee-est,  tiniest  fracture ;  it  had  been  roughly  handled ; 
that  was  all.  In  a  month's  time  she  would  no  more 
yearn  to  become  a  hospital  nurse  than  to  follow  the 
profession  of  a  chimney-sweep.  In  a  month's  time 
she  would  be  flirting  with  merry,  whole-hearted  out- 
rageousness.  In  a  month's  time,  if  the  True  Prince 
came  along,  she  might  be  in  love.  Really  in  love. 
What  a  wonderful  gift  to  a  man  would  be  the  love 
of  this  fragrant  wisp  of  womanhood! 

"  I've  quite  made  up  my  mind,  dear,"  she  repeated. 

"  Then  there's  nothing  more  to  be  said,"  replied 
Clementina. 

A  shade  of  disappointment  spread  over  the  girl's 
face,  like  a  little  cloud  over  a  May  morning.  She 
jumped  from  the  window-seat  and  slid  to  a  stool  by 
Clementina's  chair. 


io8     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

"  But  there's  lots  to  be  said.  Lots.  It's  a  tremen- 
dously important  decision  in  life." 

"  Tremendous,"  said  Clementina. 

"  It  means  that  I'll  die  an  old  maid." 

"  Like  me,"  said  Clementina. 

"  If  I'm  like  you  I  won't  care  a  bit !  " 

"  Lord,  save  us,"  said  Clementina. 

The  girl  actually  took  it  for  granted  that  she  en- 
joyed being  an  old  maid. 

"  I'll  have  a  little  house  in  the  country  all  covered 
with  honeysuckle,  and  a  pony-trap  and  a  dog  and  a 
cat  and  you'll  come  and  stay  with  me." 

"  I  thought  you  were  going  to  be  a  hospital  nurse," 
said  Clementina. 

"  So  I  am ;  but  I'll  live  in  the  house  when  I'm  off 
duty." 

Clementina  rolled  a  cigarette.  Etta  knelt  bolt  up- 
right and  offered  a  lighted  match.  Now  when  a 
lissom-figured  girl  kneels  bolt  upright,  with  a  shapely 
head  thrown  ever  so  little  back,  and  stretches  out  her 
arm,  there  are  few  things  more  adorable  in  this  world 
of  beauty.  Clementina  looked  at  her  for  full  ten 
second  with  the  eyes  of  a  Moses  on  Mount  Nebo — 
supposing  (a  bewildering  hypothesis)  that  Moses  had 
been  an  artist  and  a  woman — and  then,  disregarding 
cigarette  and  lighted  match,  she  laid  her  hands  on  the 
girl's  shoulders  and  shook  her  gently  so  that  she  sank 
back  on  her  heels,  and  the  match  went  out. 

"  Oh,  you  dear,  delightful,  silly,  silly  child." 

She  rose  abruptly  and  went  to  the  mantelpiece  and 
lit  the  cigarette  for  herself.  Etta  laughed  in  blushing 
confusion. 

"  But,  darling,  nurses  do  have  times  off  now  and 
then." 

"  I  wasn't  thinking  about  nurses  at  all,"  said  Clem- 
entina. 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     109 

"  Then  what  were  you  thinking  of?"  asked  Etta, 
still  sitting  on  her  heels  and  craning  her  head  round. 

"  Never  mind,"  said  Clementina.  "  But  what  will 
you  want  an  old  frump  like  me  in  your  house  for?  " 

"  To  listen  to  my  troubles,"  said  the  girl. 

Clementina  walked  home  through  the  soft  May  sun- 
shine, a  smile  twinkling  in  her  little  beady  eyes,  and 
the  corners  of  her  lips  twisted  into  an  expression  of 
deep  melancholy.  If  she  had  been  ten  years  younger 
there  would  have  been  no  smile  in  her  eyes.  If  she 
had  been  ten  years  older  a  corroborative  smile  would 
have  played  about  her  lips.  But  at  thirty-five  a  woman 
in  Clementina's  plight  often  does  not  know  whether 
to  laugh  or  to  cry,  and  if  she  is  a  woman  with  a  sense 
of  humour  she  does  both  at  once.  The  eternal  prom- 
ise, the  eternal  message  vibrated  through  the  air.  The 
woman  of  five-and-thirty  heard  it  instinctively  and 
rejected  it  intellectually.  She  hurried  her  pace  and 
gripped  her  umbrella-^Clementina  always  carried  a 
great,  untidy,  bulging  umbreJla — as  if  to  assure  her- 
self that  it  would  rain  to-morrow  from  leaden  skies. 
But  the  day  laughed  at  her,  and  the  gardens  \vhich 
she  passed  flaunted  lilac  and  laburnam  and  pink  may 
and  springtide  and  youth  before  her,  and  buttercups 
looked  at  her  with  a  mocking  air  of  innocence. 
Forget-me-nots  in 'window-boxes  leaned  forward  and 
whispered,  "  See  how  fresh  and  young  we  are."  A 
very  young  plane  tree  looked  impudently  green ;  in  its 
dainty  fragility  it  suggested  Etta. 

"  Drat  the  child,"  said  Clementina,  and  she  walked 
along,  shutting  her  eyes  to  the  immature  impertinences 
of  the  spring.  But  outside  the  window  of  a  fruiterer's 
in  the  Royal  Hospital  Road  she  stopped  short,  with  a 
little  inward  gasp.  A  bunch  of  parrot-tulips — great 
riotous  gold  things  splashed  all  over  with  their  crimson 
hearts'  blood,  flared  like  the  sunset  flames  of  a  tropical 


no     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

summer.  As  a  hungry  tomtit  flies  straight  to  a  shred 
of  meat,  she  went  in  and  bought  them. 

When  she  reached  her  house  in  Romney  Place  she 
peeped  for  the  last  (and  the  hundredth)  time  into  the 
open  mouth  of  the  twisted  white  paper  cornet. 

"  They'll  make  a  nice  bit  of  colour  on  the  dinner- 
table  for  Tommy,"  she  said  to  herself. 

O  Clementina !  O  Woman !  What  in  the  name  of 
Astarte  had  the  gold  and  crimson  reprobates  to  do 
with  Tommy  ? 

She  let  herself  in  with  her  key,  traversed  her  Shera- 
ton drawing-room,  and  opening  the  door  leading  on  to 
the  studio  gallery.  Tommy  was  below,  walking  up 
and  down  like  a  young  wild  beast  in  a  cage.  His  us- 
ually tidy  hair  was  ruffled,  as  though  frenzied  fingers 
had  disturbed  its  calm.  Clementina  called  out : 

"  You  asked  if  you  could  come  to  dinner.  Six 
o'clock  isn't  dinner-time." 

"  I  know,"  he  cried  up  at  her.  "  I've  been  here  for 
an  hour." 

She  went  down  the  spiral  staircase  and  confronted 
him. 

"  What  have  you  been  doing  to  your  hair  ?  It's 
like  Ferdinand's  in  The  Tempest.  And" — noticing  a 
new  note  of  violence  in  the  customary  peaceful  chaos 
of  the  studio,  "  why  have  you  been  kicking  my  cush- 
ions about  ?  " 

"  My  uncle  has  gone  stick,  stark,  staring,  raving, 
lunatic  mad,"  said  Tommy. 

He  turned  on  his  heel  and  strode  to  the  other  end 
of  the  studio.  Clementina  threw  the  parrot-tulips  on 
a  chair  and  drew  off  her  left-hand  old  cotton  glove, 
which  she  cast  on  the  tulips.  Then  for  a  while,  during 
Tommy's  retreat  and  approach,  she  gazed  thoughtfully 
at  the  thumb-tip  which  protruded  from  the  right-hand 
glove. 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     in 

"  I'm  not  at  all  surprised,"  she  said,  when  Tommy 
joined  her. 

"  How  else  can  you  account  for  it?  "  cried  Tommy, 
flinging  his  arms  wide. 

"  Account  for  what  ?  " 

"  What  he  has  done.  Listen.  A  week  ago  he  came 
to  see  me,  as  jolly  as  could  be.  You  were  there " 

"  About  as  jolly  as  a  slug,"  said  Clementina. 

"  Anyway,  he  was  all  right.  I  told  the  dear  old  chap 
I  had  unaccountably  exceeded  my  allowance — and  he 
sent  me  a  cheque  next  day,  just  as  he  always  does. 
This  afternoon  a  card  is  brought  up  to  me — my  uncle's 
card.  Written  on  it  in  his  handwriting :  '  To  intro- 
duce Mr.  Theodore  Vandermeer.' ' 

"  What  name  ? "  asked  Clementina,  pricking  her 
ears. 

"  Vandermeer." 

"  Go  on." 

"  I  tell  the  servant  to  show  him  in — and  in  comes  a 
dilapidated  devil  looking  like  a  mangy  fox " 

"  That's  the  man." 

"  Do  you  know  him  ?  " 

"All  right.    Goon." 

" who  squirms  and  wriggles  and  beats  about  the 

bush,  and  at  last  tells  me  that  he  is  commissioned  by 
my  uncle  to  inform  me  that  unless  I  give  up. painting 
and  go  into  some  infernal  city  office  within  a  month 
he'll  stop  my  allowance  and  cut  me  out  of  his  will." 

Clementina  worked  the  thumb-tip  through  the  hole 
in  the  right  hand  glove  until  the  entire  thumb  was 
visible. 

"  What  are  you  going  to  do?  "  she  asked. 

Tommy  waved  his  arms.  "  I  must  try  to  see  my 
uncle  and  ask  him  what's  the  meaning  of  it.  Of 
course,  I've  no  claim  on  him — but  he's  a  rich  man 
and  fond  of  me  and  all  that — and,  when  my  poor 


ii2     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

mother  died,  he  sort  of  adopted  me  and  gave  me  to 
understand  that  I  needn't  worry.  So  I  haven't  wor- 
ried. And  when  I  took  up  with  painting  he  encour- 
aged me  all  he  knew.  It's  damnable !  "  He  paused, 
and  strode  three  or  four  paces  up  the  studio  and  three 
or  four  back,  as  though  to  work  oft  the  dangerous 
excess  of  damnability  in  the  situation.  "  It  isn't  as  if 
I  were  an  idle  waster  going  to  the  devil.  I've  worked 
jolly  hard,  haven't  I?  I've  put  my  back  into  it, .and 
I'm  beginning  to  do  something.  Only  last  week  I 
was  telling  him  about  the  New  Gallery  picture — he 
seemed  quite  pleased — and  now,  without  a  minute's 
warning,  he  sends  this  foxy-faced  jackal  to  tell  me  to 
go  into  an  office.  It's — it's — God  knows  what  it 
isn't!" 

"  I  believe,"  said  Clementina,  looking  at  her  thumb, 
"  that  there  are  quite  worthy  young  men  in  city 
offices." 

"  I  would  sooner  go  into  a  stoke-hole,"  cried 
Tommy.  "  Oh,  it's  phantasmagorical !  " 

He  sat  down  on  the  platform  of  the  throne  and 
buried  his  head  in  his  hands. 

"  Cheer  up,"  said  Clementina.  "The  world  hasn't 
come  to  an  end  yet  and  we  haven't  had  dinner." 

She  opened  a  door  at  the  back  of  the  studio  that 
communicated  with  the  kitchen  regions  and,  calling  out 
for  Eliza,  was  answered  by  a  distant  voice. 

"  Go  to  the  grocer's  and  fetch  a  bottle  of  cham- 
pagne for  dinner." 

"  Yes,  ma'am,"  said  the  voice,  coming  nearer. 
"  What  kind  of  champagne  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  Clementina.  "  But  tell  him  to 
send  the  best  bottle  he  has  got." 

"  What  a  good  sort  you  are,"  said  Tommy. 

Neither  were  alarmed  by  the  prospective  quality  of 
this  vaguely  selected  vintage.  How  holy  is  simplicity ! 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     113 

It  enables  men  and  woman  to  face  and  pass  through 
terrors  without  recognising  them. 

Clementina  took  off  her  hat  and  right-hand  glove, 
and  rolled  a  cigarette.  Tommy  burst  out  again : 

"  Why  didn't  he  send  for  me  and  tell  me  so  himself? 
Why  didn't  he  write  ?  Why  did  he  charter  this  seedy, 
ugly  scoundrel?  I  asked  the  wretch.  He  said  my 
uncle  thought  that  such  a  delicate  communication  had 
better  be  made  through  a  third  party.  But  what's  my 
uncle  doing — associating  with  such  riff-raff?  Why 
didn't  he  choose  a  gentleman?  This  chap  looks  as  if 
he'd  murder  you  for  tuppence." 

The  young  are  apt  to  exaggerate  the  defects  of 
those  who  have  not  gained  their  esteem.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  acknowledged  afterwards  by  Tommy,  Vander- 
meer  had  accomplished  his  unpleasant  mission  with 
considerable  tact  and  delicacy.  Tommy  was  an  up- 
standing, squarely  built  young  Saxon,  with  a  bright 
blue  eye,  and  there  was  a  steep  flight  of  stairs  leading 
down  from  his  studio. 

"  Once  I  fed  him  on  ham  and  beef  round  the  cor- 
ner," said  Clementina. 

"  The  devil  you  did,"  said  Tommy. 

Clementina  related  the  episode  and  her  subsequent 
conversation  with  Quixtus. 

"  I  give  it  up,"  said  Tommy.  "  I  knew  that  my 
uncle  was  greatly  upset  by  the  trial — and  I  have  been 
thinking  that  perhaps  it  has  rather  unhinged  his  mind 
— and  that  was  why  he  took  up  with  such  a  scare- 
crow. But  he  has  apparently  been  a  friend  of  his 
for  years.  It  shows  you  how  little  we  know  of  our 
fellow  creatures,"  he  moralised.  "  If  there  ever  was 
a  chap  I  thought  I  knew  inside  out  it  was  my  Uncle 
Ephraim."  Then  pity  smote  him.  "  If  he's  really  off 
his  head,  it's  tragic.  He  was  the  best  and  dearest  and 
kindest-hearted  fellow  in  the  world." 


H4     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

"  Did  you  ask  the  man  whether  your  uncle  had  gone 
mad?" 

"  Of  course  I  did — in  so  many  words.  Man  seemed 
to  look  on  it  as  an  astonishing  suggestion.  He  said 
my  uncle  had  long  disapproved  of  my  taking  up  paint- 
ing as  a  profession,  and  now  had  arrived  at  the  convic- 
tion that  the  best  thing  for  me  was  a  commercial 
career — a  commercial  career !  " 

So  do  Thrones  and  Dominations,  I  imagine,  speak 
of  the  mundane  avocations  of  a  mere  Angel. 

"  If  you  refuse,  you'll  be  giving  up  three  hundred  a 
year  now  and  heaven  knows  how  much  afterwards," 
said  Clementina. 

"  And  if  I  accepted  I  would  be  giving  up  my  self- 
respect,  my  art,  my  dreams,  everything  that  makes  for 
Life — Life  with  the  biggest  of  capital  L's.  By  George, 
no !  If  my  uncle  won't  listen  to  reason  I'll  not  listen 
to  unreason,  and  there's  an  end  of  it.  I'll  pull  through 
somehow." 

"  Good,"  said  Clementina,  who  had  remained  re- 
markably silent.  "  I  was  waiting  to  hear  you  say  that. 
If  you  had  hesitated  I  should  have  told  you  to  go 
home  and  dine  by  yourself.  A  little  starvation  and 
struggle  and  fringe  to  your  trousers  will  be  the  mak- 
ing of  you.  As  for  your  uncle,  if  he's  crazy  he's 
crazy,  and  there's  an  end  of  it,  as  you  say.  Let's  talk 
no  more  about  it.  What  made  you  beg  to  come  to 
dinner  this  evening?  "  she  asked,  with  a  resumption  of 
her  aggressive  manner. 

"  The  desire  of  the  moth  for  the  star,"  he  laughed. 

She  responded  in  her  grim  way,  and  bade  him  amuse 
himself  while  she  went  upstairs  to  wash  her  face  and 
hands.  Clementina  did  wash  her  face,  literally,  scrub- 
bing it  with  Old  Brown  Windsor  soap  and  towelling  it 
vigorously  afterwards,  thereby  accomplishing,  as  her 
feminine  acquaintances  asserted,  the  ruin  of  her  skin. 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     115 

She  rose  and  went  to  the  foot  of  the  stairs.  Tommy's 
eye  fell  on  the  parrot-tulips  in  their  white  cornet. 

"  What  are  you  going  to  do  with  those  gaudy 
things  ?  " 

Clementina  had  forgotten  them.  The  curious  im- 
pulse of  the  blood  that  had  led  to  their  purchase  had 
been  spent.  Tommy's  news  had  puzzled  her  and  had 
taken  her  mind  off  foolishness.  She  glanced  at  them 
somewhat  ashamedly. 

"  Stick  them  in  water,  of  course,"  she  replied. 
"  You  don't  suppose  I'm  going  to  wear  them?  " 

"Why  not?"  cried  Tommy,  and,  snatching  out  a 
great  gold  and  crimson  bloom,  he  held  it  against  her 
black  hair  and  swarthy  brow.  "  By  jove.  You  look 
stunning!  " 

Clementina,  in  a  tone  of  some  asperity,  told  him 
not  to  be  a  fool,  and  mounted  the  stairs  with  unac- 
countably burning  cheeks. 

At  dinner,  Tommy,  inspired  by  more  than  three- 
fourths  of  the  grocer's  best  bottle  of  champagne, 
talked  glowingly  of  his  prospects  in  the  event  of  his 
uncle's  craziness  not  being  a  transitory  disorder. 
After  all,  the  world  was  his  oyster,  and  he  knew  the 
trick  of  opening  it.  Most  people  bungled,  and  jabbed 
their  fingers  through  trying  to  prize  it  open  at  the 
wrong  end.  THe  wise  man,  said  he,  in  the  tone  of  an 
infant  Solon,  was  he  who  not  only  made  a  mock  of 
misfortune,  but  bent  it  to  his  own  use  as  an  instru- 
ment for  the  attainment  of  happiness.  When  chal- 
lenged, he  confessed  that  he  got  this  gem  of  sapience 
out  of  a  book.  But  it  was  jolly  true,  wasn't  it? 
Really,  he  was  looking  forward  to  poverty.  He  was 
sick  of  silk  hats  and  patent  leather  boots  and  the  young 
women  he  met  at  tea-parties.  Nature  beat  the  lot. 
Nature  for  him.  Thoreau — "  The  boy's  going  as 
cracked  as  his  uncle !  "  cried  Clementina — Thoreau,  he 


n6     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

insisted,  had  found  out  the  truth.  He  would  give  up 
his  studio,  take  a  labourer's  cottage  in  the  country  at 
two  shillings  a  week,  live  on  lentils,  paint  immortal 
though  perhaps  not  instantaneously  remunerative 
landscapes  by  day  and  do  all  sorts  of  things  with  his 
pencil  for  the  sake  of  a  livelihood  by  night.  He  knew 
of  a  beautiful  cottage,  two  rooms  and  a  kitchen,  near 
Hagbourne,  in  Berkshire.  The  place  was  a  forest  of 
cherry-trees.  Nothing  more  breathlessly  beautiful  on 
the  earth  than  the  whole  of  a  country-side  quivering 
with  cherry-blossom — except  the  same  countryside 
when  it  was  a  purple  mist  of  cherries.  Geoffrey  King 
had  the  cottage  last  summer.  There  was  a  bit  of  a 
garden  which  he  could  cultivate — cherry-trees  in  it, 
of  course;  also  flowers  and  vegetables.  He  would 
supply  Clementina  with  pansies  and  potatoes  all  the 
year  round.  There  was  a  pigstye,  too — useful  in  case 
he  wanted  to  run  a  pig.  When  Clementina  was  tired 
of  London,  she  could  come  to  the  cottage  and  he 
would  sleep  in  the  pigstye. 

For  the  second  time  that  day  she  asked : 

"  What  will  you  want  an  old  frump  like  me  in  the 
house  for  ?  " 

"  To  look  at  my  pictures,"  said  Tommy. 

Clementina  sniffed.  "  I  thought  as  much,"  she  said. 
"  Really,  the  callous  selfishness  of  old  age  is  saintlike 
altruism  compared  with  the  fresh,  spontaneous  ego- 
tism of  youth." 

Tommy,  accustomed  to  her  sharp  sayings,  only 
laughed  boyishly.  How  was  he  to  guess  the  history 
of  the  parrot-tulips?  He  was  mildly  surprised,  how- 
ever, when  she  decided  to  spend  the  evening,  not  in 
the  studio,  but  in  the  stiff,  Sheraton  drawing-room. 
He  protested.  It  was  so  much  jollier  in  the  studio. 
She  asked  why. 

"  This  place  has  no  character,  no  personality.     It 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     117 

looks  like  a  show  drawing-room  in  a  furniture  deal- 
er's window.  It  has  nothting  to  do  with  you.  It 
means  nothing." 

"  That's  just  why  I  want  to  sit  in  it,"  said  Clemen- 
tina.   "You  can  go  to  the  studio,  if  you  like." 
'  That  wouldn't  be  polite,"  said  Tommy. 

She  shrugged  her  shoulders  and  sat  down  at  the 
piano  and  played  scraps  of  Mozart,  Beethoven,  and 
Grieg — memories  of  girlhood — with  the  inexpert  mu- 
sician's uncertainty  of  touch.  Tommy  wandered  rest- 
lessly about  the  room  examining  the  Bartolozzis  and 
the  backs  of  the  books  in  the  glass-protected  cases. 
At  last  he  became  conscious  of  strain.  He  leant  over 
the  piano,  and  waited  until  she  had  broken  down  hope- 
lessly in  a  fragment  of  Peer  Gynt. 

"  Have  I  said  or  done  anything  wrong,  Clementina? 
If  so,  I'm  dreadfully  sorry." 

She  shut  the  piano  with  a  bang. 

"  You  poor,  motherless  babe,"  she  cried.  "Who 
would  you  go  to  with  your  troubles,  if  you  hadn't 
got  me  ?  " 

Tommy  smiled  vaguely. 

"  Deuce  knows,"  said  he. 

"  Then  let  us  go  down  to  the  studio  and  talk  about 
them,"  said  Clementina. 


CHAPTER  IX 

AFTER  leaving  Clementina,  Tommy  went  for  a 
long  brisk  walk  in  order  to  clear  his  mind,  and 
on  his  homeward  way  along  the  Embankment, 
branched  off  to  the  middle  of  old  Chelsea  Bridge  in 
order  to  admire  the  moonlight  view ;  he  also  took  off 
his  hat  in  order  to  get  cool.  The  treacherous  May 
wind  cooled  him  effectually  and  sent  him  to  bed  for 
three  days  with  a  chill. 

Clementina  sat  by  his  rueful  bedside  and  rated  him 
soundly.  The  idea  of  one  just  recovering  from  pneu- 
monia setting  his  blood  boiling  hot  and  then  cooling 
himself  on  a  bridge  at  midnight  in  the  bitter  north- 
east wind !  He  was  about  as  sane  as  his  uncle.  They 
were  a  pretty  and  well-matched  pair.  Both  ought  to 
be  placed  under  restraint.  A  dark  house  and  a  whip 
would  have  been  their  portion  in  the  good  old  times. 

"  I've  got  'em  both  now,"  said  Tommy,  grinning. 
"  This  confounded  bedroom  is  my  dark  house  and  your 
tongue  is  the  whip." 

"  I  hope  it  hurts  like  the  devil,"  said  Clementina. 

Tommy  wrote  from  his  sick  bed  a  dignified  and 
manly  letter  to  his  uncle,  and,  like  Brutus,  paused  for  a 
reply.  None  came.  Quixtus  read  it,  and  his  warped 
vision  saw  ingratitude  and  hypocrisy  in  every  line. 
He  had  already  spoken  to  Griffiths  about  the  office- 
stool  in  the  Star  Insurance  Company.  Tommy's  em- 
phatic refusal  to  sit  on  it  placed  him  in  an  awkward 
position  with  regard  to  Griffiths.  Openings  in  a  large 
insurance  office  are  not  as  common  as  those  for  hop- 
pickers  in  August.  Griffiths,  a  sour  tempered  man  at 

118 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     119 

times,  would  be  annoyed.  Quixtus,  encouraged  by 
Vandermeer,  regarded  himself  as  an  ill  used  uncle, 
and  not  only  missed  all  the  thrill  of  his  deed  of 
wickedness,  but  accepted  Tommy's  decision  as  a  rebuff 
to  his  purely  benevolent  intentions.  He  therefore 
added  the  unfortunate  Tommy  to  the  list  of  those 
whom  he  had  tried  and  found  wanting.  He  had  a 
grievance  against  Tommy.  Such  is  the  topsy-turvey- 
dom  of  man  after  a  little  thread  has  snapped  in  his 
brain. 

Now,  it  so  happened  that,  on  the  selfsame  day  that 
Tommy  crawled  again  into  the  open  air,  Clementina, 
standing  before  her  easel  and  painfully  painting  drap- 
ery from  the  lay  figure,  suddenly  felt  the  whole  studio 
gyrate  in  a  whirling  maelstrom,  into  whose  vortex  of 
unconsciousness  she  was  swiftly  sucked.  She  fell  in  a 
heap  on  the  floor,  and  remained  there  until  she  came 
to  with  a  splitting  headache  and  a  sensation  of  carry- 
ing masses  of  bruised  pulp  at  various  corners  of  her 
body  instead  of  limbs.  Her  maid,  Eliza,  finding  her 
lying  white  and  ill  on  the  couch  to  which  she  had 
dragged  herself,  administered  water — there  was  no 
such  thing  as  smelling-salts  in  Clementina's  house — 
and,  on  her  own  responsibility,  summoned  the  nearest 
doctor.  The  result  of  his  examination  was  a  diag- 
nosis of  overwork.  Clementina  jeered.  Only  idlers 
suffered  from  overwork.  Besides,  she  was  as  strong 
as  a  horse.  The  doctor  reminded  her  that  she  was  a 
woman,  with  a  woman's  delicately  adjusted  nervous 
system.  She  also  had  her  sex's  lack  of  restraint.  A 
man,  finding  that  he  was  losing  sleep,  appetite,  control 
of  temper  and  artistic  grip,  would  abandon  work  and 
plunge  utterly  unashamed  into  hoggish  idleness.  A 
woman  always  feels  that  by  fighting  against  weakness 
she  is  upholding  the  honour  of  her  sex,  and  struggles 
on  insanely  till  she  drops. 


120     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

"  I'm  glad  you  realise  I'm  a  woman,"  said  Clemen- 
tina. 

"Why?" 

"  Because  you're  the  first  man  who  has  done  so  for 
many  years." 

The  doctor,  a  youngish  man,  very  earnest,  of  the 
modern  neuropathic  school,  missed  the  note  of  irony. 
This  was  the  first  time  he  had  ever  seen  Clementina. 

"  You're  one  of  the  most  highly  strung  women  I've 
ever  come  across,"  said  he,  gravely.  "  I  want  you  to 
appreciate  the  fact  and  not  to  strain  the  tension  to 
breaking-point." 

"  You  wrap  it  up  very  nicely,"  said  Clementina ; 
"  but,  to  put  it  brutally,  your  honest  opinion  is  that 
I'm  just  a  silly,  unreasonable,  excitable,  sex-ridden  fool 
of  a  female  like  a  million  others.  Isn't  that  so?  " 

The  young  doctor  bore  the  scrutiny  of  those  glit- 
tering, ironical  points  of  eyes  with  commendable  pro- 
fessional stolidity. 

"  It  is,"  said  he,  and  in  saying  it  he  had  the  young 
practitioner's  horrible  conviction  that  he  had  lost  an 
influential  new  patient.  But  Clementina  stretched  out 
her  hand.  He  took  it  very  gladly. 

"  I  like  you,"  she  said,  "  because  you're  not  afraid 
to  talk  sense.  Now  I'll  do  whatever  you  tell  me." 

"  Go  away  for  a  complete  change — anywhere  will 
do — and  don't  think  of  work  for  a  month  at  the  very 
least." 

"  All  right,"  said  Clementina. 

When  Tommy,  looking  very  much  the  worse  for  his 
relapse,  came  in  the  next  day  to  report  himself  in 
robust  health  once  more,  Clementina  acquainted  him 
with  her  own  bodily  infirmities.  It  was  absurd,  she 
declared,  that  she  should  break  down,  but  absurdity 
was  the  guiding  principle  of  this  comic  planet.  Holi- 
day was  ordained.  She  had  spent  a  sleepless  night 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     121 

thinking  how  she  should  make  it.  Dawn  had  brought 
solution  of  the  problem.  Why  not  make  it  in  fantastic 
fashion,  harmonising  with  the  absurd  scheme  of 
things  ? 

"What  are  you  going  to  do?"  asked  Tommy. 
"  Spend  a  frolicsome  month  in  Whitechapel,  or  put 
on  male  attire  and  go  for  a  soldier?  " 

"  I  shall  hire  an  automobile  and  motor  about 
France." 

"  It's  sporting  enough,"  said  Tommy,  judicially, 
"  but  I  should  hardly  call  it  fantastic." 

"  Wait  till  you've  heard  the  rest,"  said  Clementina. 
"  I  had  originally  intended  to  take  Etta  Concannon 
with  me;  but  since  you've  come  here  looking  like 
three-ha'porth  of  misery,  I've  decided  to  take  you." 

"Me?"  cried  Tommy.  "My  dear  Clementina, 
that's  absurd." 

"  I  thought  you  would  agree  with  me,"  said  Clem- 
entina, "  but  I'm  going  to  do  it.  Wouldn't  you  like 
to  come?  " 

"  I  should  think  so !  "  he  exclaimed,  boyishly,  "  It 
would  be  gorgeous.  But " 

"But  what?" 

"  How  can  I  afford  to  go  motoring  abroad  ?  " 

"  You  wouldn't  have  to  afford  it.  You  would  be  my 
guest." 

"It's  delightful  of  you,  Clementina,  to  think  of  it 
— but  it's  impossible." 

Whereupon  an  argument  arose  such  as  has  often 
arisen  between  man  and  woman. 

"  I'm  old  enough  to  be  your  grandmother,  or  at 
least  you  think  so,  which  comes  to  the  same  thing/* 
said  Clementina. 

Tommy's  young  pride  would  not  allow  him  to  accept 
largesse  from  feminine  hands,  however  elderly  and  un- 
romantic. 


12*     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

"  If  I  had  a  country  house  and  hosts  of  servants  and 
several  motor-cars  and  asked  you  to  stay,  you'd  come 
without  hesitation." 

"  That  would  be  different.  Don't  you  see  for  your- 
self?" 

Clementina  chose  not  to  see  for  herself.  Here  was 
a  dolorous  baby  of  a  boy  disinherited  by  a  lunatic 
uncle,  emaciated  by  illness  and  unable  to  work,  refus- 
ing a  helping  hand  just  because  it  was  a  woman's.  It 
was  preposterous.  Clementina  grew  angry.  Tommy 
held  firm. 

"  It's  merely  selfish  of  you.  Don't  you  see  I  want  a 
companion?  " 

Tommy  pointed  out  the  companionable  qualities  of 
Etta  Concannon.  But  she  would  not  hear  of  Etta. 
The  sight  of  Tommy's  wan  face  had  decided  her,  and 
she  was  a  woman  who  was  accustomed  to  carry  out 
her  decisions.  She  was  somewhat,  dictatorial,  some- 
what hectoring.  She  had  taken  it  into  her  head  to 
play  fairy  godmother  to  Tommy  Burgrave,  and  she 
resented  his  repudiation  of  her  godmotherdom.  Be- 
sides, there  were  purely  selfish  reasons  for  choosing 
Tommy  rather  than  Etta,  which  she  acknowledged 
with  inward  candour.  Tommy  was  a  man  who  would 
fetch  and  carry  and  keep  the  chauffeur  up  to  the  mark, 
,and  inspire  gendarmes  and  custom-house  officials  and 
maitres-d'hotel  with  respect,  and,  although  Clementina 
feared  neither  man  nor  devil,  she  was  aware  of  the 
value  of  a  suit  of  clothes  filled  with  a  male  entity  as  a 
travelling  adjunct  to  a  lone  woman.  With  Etta  the 
case  would  be  different.  Etta  would  fetch  her  motor- 
veil  and  carry  her  gloves  with  the  most  adoringly  sub- 
missive grace  in  the  world;  but  all  the  real  fetching 
and  carrying  for  the  two  of  them  would  have  to  be 
done  by  Clementina  herself.  Therein  lay  the  differ- 
ence between  Clementina  and  the  type  generally  known 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     123 

as  the  emancipated  woman.  She  had  no  exaggerated 
notions  of  the  equality  of  the  sexes,  which  in  feminine 
logic  generally  means  the  high  superiority  of  women. 
Circumstance  had  emancipated  her  from  dependence 
upon  the  other  sex,  but  on  the  circumstance  and  the 
emancipation  she  cast  not  too  favourable  an  eye.  She 
had  a  crystal  clear  idea  of  the  substantial  usefulness 
of  men  in  this  rough  and  not  always  ready  cosmic 
scheme.  Therefore,  for  purposes  of  utility,  she 
wanted  Tommy.  In  her  usual  blunt  manner  she  told 
him  so. 

'  You  run  in  here  at  all  hours  of  the  day  and  night, 
and  it's  Clementina  this  and  Clementina  that  until  I 
can't  call  my  soul  my  own — and  now,  the  first  time  I 
ask  you  to  do  me  a  service  you  fall  back  on  your  silly 
little  prejudices  and  vanity  and  pride,  and  say  you 
can't  do  it." 

"  I'm  very  sorry,"  said  Tommy,  humbly. 

"  I  tell  you  what  it  is,"  said  Clementina,  with  a 
curiously  vicious  feminine  stroke,  "  you'd  come  if  I 
was  a  smart-looking  woman  with  fine  clothes  who 
could  be  a  credit  to  you — but  you  won't  face  going 
about  with  an  animated  rag-and-bone  shop  like  me." 

Tommy  flushed  as  pink  as  only  a  fair  youth  can 
flush;  he  sprang  forward  and  seized  her  wrists  and, 
unwittingly,  hurt  her  in  his  strong  and  indignant 
grip. 

"  What  you're  saying  is  abominable  and  you  ought 
to  be  ashamed  of  yourself.  If  I  thought  anything  like 
that  I'd  be  the  most  infernal  cur  that  ever  trod  the 
earth.  I'd  like  to  shake  you  for  daring  to  say  such 
things  about  me." 

He  flung  away  her  hands  and  stalked  off  to  the 
other  end  of  the  studio,  leaving  her  with  tingling 
wrists  and  unfindable  retort. 

"  If  you  really  think  I  can  be  of  service  to  you,"  he 


124     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

said,  in  a  dignified  way,  having  completed  the  return 
journey,  "  I  shall  be  most  happy  to  come." 

"  I  don't  want  you  to  make  a  martyr  of  yourself," 
she  snapped. 

Tommy  considered  within  himself  for  a  moment  or 
two,  then  broke  into  his  boyish  laugh. 

"  I'm  an  ungrateful  pig,  and  I'll  follow  you  all 
over  the  world.  Dear  old  Clementina,"  he  added, 
more  seriously,  putting  his  hand  on  her  shoulder, 
"  forgive  me." 

Clementina  gently  removed  his  hand.  She  pre- 
ferred the  grip  on  the  wrists  that  hurt.  But,  mollified, 
she  forgave  him. 

So  in  a  few  days  they  started  on  their  travels. 

The  thirty-five  horse-power  car  whirled  them,  a 
happy  pair,  through  the  heart  of  summer.  Above  the 
blue  sky  blazed,  and  beneath  the  white  road  gleamed 
a  shivering  streak.  The  exhilarating  wind  of  their 
motion  filled  their  lungs  and  set  their  tired  pulses 
throbbing.  Now  and  then,  for  miles,  the  great  plane 
trees  on  each  side  of  the  way  formed  the  never-ending 
nave  of  an  infinite  cathedral,  the  roof  a  miracle  of 
green  tracery.  Through  quiet,  sun-baked  villages  they 
passed,  at  a  snail's  pace,  hooting  children  and  dogs 
from  before  their  path — and  because  they  proceeded 
slowly  and  Tommy  was  goodly  to  look  upon,  the 
women  smiled  from  their  doorways,  or  from  the  run* 
ning  laundry  stream  where  they  knelt  and  beat  the  wet 
clothes,  or  from  the  fountain  in  the  cool,  flagged 
little  square  jutting  out  like  a  tiny  transept  from  the 
aisle  of  the  street.  Babies  stared  stolidly.  Here  and 
there  a  bunch  of  little  girls,  their  hair  tied  in  demure 
pigtails,  the  blue  sarrau  over  their  loud  check  frocks 
would  laugh  and  whisper,  and  one  more  daring  than 
the  rest  would  wave  an  audacious  hand,  and  when 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     125] 

Tommy  blew  her  a  kiss  from  his  fingers  there  came 
the  little  slut's  gracious  response,  amid  mirth  and 
delight  unspeakable.  Men  would  look  up  from  their 
dusty,  bare,  uneven  bowling-alley  beneath  the  trees 
and  watch  them  as  they  went  by.  An  automobile,  in 
spite  of  its  frequency,  is  always  an  event  in  a  French 
village.  If  it  races  mercilessly  through,  there  is  rea- 
sonable opportunity  to  curse,  which  always  gladdens 
the  heart  of  man.  If  it  proceeds  slowly  and  shows 
deference  to  the  inhabitants,  it  is  an  event  rare  enough 
to  command  their  admiration.  Instead  of  shutting 
their  eyes  against  a  sort  of  hell-chariot  in  a  whirlwind, 
they  can  observe  the  gracefully  built  car  and  its 
stranger  though  human  occupants,  which  is  something 
deserving  a  note  in  the  record  of  an  eventless  day. 
If  they  stopped  and  quitted  the  car  so  as  to  glance 
at  leisure  at  old  church  or  quaint  fountain — and  in 
many  an  out-of-the-way  village  in  France  the  water 
of  the  community  gushes  forth  from  a  beautiful  work 
of  art — all  the  idlers  of  the  sunny  place  clustered 
round  the  car,  while  the  British  chauffeur  stood  by  the 
radiator,  impeccably  vestured  and  unembarrassed  as  a 
Fate.  At  noon  came  the  break  for  dejeuner;  prefer- 
ably in  some  little  world- forgotten  townlet,  where, 
after  the  hors-d'ceuvre,  omelette,  cutlet,  chicken,  and 
fruit — and  where  is  the  sad,  plague-stricken  hamlet  of 
France  that  cannot,  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  pro- 
vide such  a  meal  for  the  hungry  wayfarer? — they 
loved  to  take  their  coffee  beneath  the  awning  of  a 
cafe  on  the  shady  side  of  the  great,  sleepy  square, 
and  absorb  the  sleepy,  sunny,  prosperous  spirit  of  the 
place;  the  unpainted  bandstand  in  the  centre,  the  low- 
lying  houses  with  sleepy  little  shops  and  cafes — 
Heavens!  how  many  cafes! — around  it,  the  modern, 
model-built  Hotel  de  Ville,  the  fine  avenue  of  plane 
trees  without  which  no  Grande  Place  in  France  could 


126     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

exist,  and,  above  the  roofs  of  the  houses,  the  weather- 
beaten,  crumbling  Gothic  tower  of  the  church  sur- 
mounted by  its  extinguisher-shaped  leaden  belfry 
alive  with  vivid  yellows  and  olives.  And  then  the 
road  again  past  the  rapidly  becoming  familiar  objects; 
the  slow  ox-carts ;  the  herd  of  wayside  goats  in  charge 
of  a  dirty,  tow-headed  child;  the  squad  of  canvas- 
suited  soldiers ;  the  great  lumbering  waggons  drawn  by 
a  string  of  three  gaudily  and  elaborately  yoked  horses, 
the  driver  fast  asleep  on  the  top  of  his  mountainous 
load ;  the  mongrel  dogs  that  sought,  and  happily  found 
not,  euthanasia  beneath  the  wheels  of  the  modern  car 
of  Juggernaut;  the  sober-vested  peasant  women  bend- 
ing beneath  their  burdens  with  the  calm,  unexpressive 
faces  of  cariatides  grown  old  and  withered.  Towards 
the  later  afternoon  was  reached  the  larger  town  where 
they  would  halt  for  the  night:  first  came  the  eternal, 
but  grateful,  outer  boulevard  cool  with  foliage,  run- 
ning between  newly  built,  perky  houses  and  shops  and 
then  leading  into  the  heart  of  the  older  city,  grey, 
narrow-streeted,  picturesque.  As  the  automobile  clat- 
tered through  the  great  gateway  of  the  hotel  into  the 
paved  courtyard,  out  came  the  decent  landlord  and 
smiling  landlady,  welcomed  their  guests,  summoned 
unshaven  men  in  green-baize  aprons — who,  at  dinner, 
were  to  appear  in  the  decorous  garb  of  waiters,  and 
in  the  morning,  by  a  subtle  modification  of  costume 
(dingy  white  aprons  instead  of  green-baize)  were  to 
do  uncomplaining  work  as  housemaids — to  take  down 
the  luggage,  and  showed  the  travellers  to  their  clean, 
bare  rooms.  After  the  summary  removal  of  the  jour- 
ney's dust  came  the  delicious  saunter  through  the 
strange  old  town;  the  stimulus  of  the  sudden  burst 
into  view  of  the  west  front  of  a  cathedral,  with  its 
deeply  recessed  and  sculptured  doorways,  and  its  great, 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     127 

flamboyant  window  struck  by  the  westering  sun;  the 
quick,  indrawn  breath  of  delight  when,  in  a  narrow, 
evil-smelling,  cobble-paved  street,  they  came  unexpect- 
edly upon  some  marvel  of  an  early  Renaissance  fagade, 
with  its  refined  riot  of  ornament,  its  unerring  propor- 
tions, its  laughing  dignity — laughing  all  the  more  and 
with  all  the  more  dignity,  as  became  its  mocking, 
aristocratic  soul,  because  the  ground  floor  was  given 
up  to  a  dingy  tinsmith  and  its  upper  storeys  to  the 
same  class  of  easy-going,  slatternly  folk  who  sat  at 
the  windows  of  the  other  unconsidered  houses  in  the 
sallow  and  homely  street;  the  gay  relief  of  emerging 
from  such  unsavoury  and  foot-massacring  byways 
into  the  quarter  of  the  town  on  which  the  Syndicat 
d'Initiative  prides  itself — the  wide,  well-kept  thorough- 
fare or  place  with  its  inevitable  greenery,  its  flourish- 
ing cafes  thick  with  decorous  folk  beneath  the  awn- 
ings, its  proud  and  prosperous  shops,  its  Municipal 
Theatre,  Bourse,  Hotel  de  Ville,  its  generously  spout- 
ing fountain,  its  statue  of  the  great  son — poet,  artist, 
soldier — of  the  locality;  its  crowd  of  well-fed  saun- 
terers — fat  and  greasy  citizens,  the  supercilious  aris- 
tocrat and  the  wolf-eyed  anarchist  might  perhaps  join 
together  in  calling  them — but  still  God's  very  worthy 
creatures;  its  general  expression,  not  of  the  joy  of  life, 
for  a  provincial  town  is,  as  a  whole,  governed  by 
conditions  which  affect  only  a  part  of  a  great  capital, 
but  of  the  undeniable  usefulness  and  pleasurableness 
of  human  existence.  Then,  after  dinner,  out  again  to 
the  cool  terrace  of  a  cafe — in  provincial  France  no  one 
lounges  over  coffee  and  tobacco  in  an  hotel — and  lastly 
to  bed,  with  wind  and  sun  in  their  eyes  and  in  their 
hearts  the  peace  of  a  beautiful  land. 

They  had  planned  the  first  part  of  their  route — • 
Boulogne,  Abbeville,  Beauvais,  Sens,  Tonnerre,  Dijon, 


128     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

through  the  Cote  d'Or  and  down  the  valley  of  the 
Rhone  to  Avignon.  After  that  the  roads  of  France 
were  open  to  them  to  go  whithersoever  they  willed. 
The  ground,  the  experience,  the  freedom,  all  were 
new  to  them.  To  Clementina  France  had  practically 
been  synonymous  with  Paris — not  Paris  of  the  Grands 
Boulevards,  Montmartre,  and  expensive  restaurants, 
but  Paris  of  the  Left  Bank,  of  the  studios,  of  struggle 
and  toil — a  place  not  of  gaiety  but  grimness.  To 
Tommy  it  meant  Paris,  too — Paris  of  the  young  artist- 
tourist,  a  museum  of  great  pictures — the  Louvre,  the 
Luxembourg,  the  Pantheon  immortalised  by  Puvis  de 
Chavannes ;  also  Dieppe,  Dinard,  and  such-like  depend- 
encies of  Britain.  But  of  the  true  France  such  as  they 
beheld  it  now  they  knew  nothing,  and  they  beheld  it 
with  the  wide-open  eyes  of  children. 

After  a  few  days  the  weariness  fell  from  Clemen- 
tina's shoulders;  new  life  sped  through  her  veins.  Her 
hard  lips  caught  the  long- forgotten  trick  of  a  smile. 
She  almost  lost  the  art  of  acid  speech.  She  grew 
young  again. 

Tommy  held  the  money-bag. 

"  I'm  not  going  to  look  like  a  maiden  aunt  treating 
a  small  boy  to  buns  at  a  confectioner's,"  she  had  de- 
clared. "  I'm  going  to  be  a  real  lady  for  once  and 
see  what  it's  like." 

So  Clementina  did  nothing  in  the  most  ladylike 
manner,  while  Tommy  played  courier  and  carried 
through  all  arrangements  with  the  impressive  air  of 
importance  that  only  a  young  Briton  in  somebody 
else's  motor-car  can  assume.  He  had  forgotten  the 
little  sacrifice  of  his  pride ;  he  had  forgotten,  or  at 
least  he  disregarded,  with  the  precious  irresponsibility 
of  three-and-twenty,  the  fact  that  his  income  was  re- 
duced to  the  negligible  quantity  of  a  pound  a  week; 
he  gave  himself  up  to  the  enjoyment  of  the  passing 


a  < 
«S 

S  2 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     129 

hour,  and  if  ever  he  did  cast  a  forward  glance  at  the 
clouded  future,  behold !  the  clouds  were  rosy  with  the 
reflections  of  the  present  sunshine. 

He  was  proud  of  his  newly  discovered  talent  as  a 
courier,  and  boasted  in  his  boyish  way : 

"  Aren't  you  glad  you've  got  me  to  take  care  of 
\yoti?" 

"  It's  a  new  sensation  for  me  to  be  taken  care  of." 

"  But  you  don't  dislike  it?  " 

He  was  arranging  at  the  bottom  of  the  car  a  pile  of 
rugs  and  wraps  as  a  footstool  for  Clementina,  at  the 
exact  height  and  angle  for  her  luxurious  comfort. 

Clementina  sighed.  She  was  beginning  to  like  it 
very  much  indeed. 


CHAPTER  X 

WHEN  they  swung  round  the  great  bend  of 
the  Rhone,  and  Vienne  came  in  sight, 
Tommy  uttered  a  cry  of  exultation. 

"  Oh  Clementina,  let  us  stay  here  for  a  week !  " 

When  they  stood  an  hour  afterwards  on  the  great 
suspension  bridge  that  connects  Vienne  with  the  little 
town  of  Sainte-Colombe,  and  drank  in  the  afternoon 
beauty  of  the  place,  Tommy  amended  his  proposition. 

"  Oh  Clementina,"  said  he,  "  let  us  stay  here  for 
ever!" 

Clementina  sighed,  and  watched  the  broad  blue  river 
sweeping  in  its  majestic  curve  between  the  wooded 
mountains  from  whose  foliage  peeped  a  myriad 
human  habitations,  the  ancient  Chateau-Fort  de  la 
Batie  standing  a  brave  and  mutilated  sentinel  on  its 
dominating  hill,  the  nestling  town  with  its  Byzantine 
towers  and  tiled  roofs,  the  Gothic  west  front  of  the 
Cathedral  framed  by  the  pylons  of  the  bridge,  the 
green  boulevarded  embankment  and  the  fort  of  Sainte- 
Colombe  in  its  broader  and  more  smiling  valley, 
guarded  it,  too,  by  its  grim  square  tower,  the  laughing 
peace  of  the  infinite  web  of  afternoon  shadow  and 
afternoon  sunlight.  Away  up  the  stream  a  barge 
moved  slowly  down  under  a  sail  of  burnished  gold. 
A  few  moments  afterwards  coming  under  the  lee  of 
the  mountains,  the  sail  turned  into  what  Tommy,  who 
had  pointed  it  out,  called  a  dream-coloured  brown. 
From  which  it  may  be  deduced  that  Tommy  was  grow- 
ing poetical. 

130 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     131 

In  former  times  Clementina  would  have  rebuked  so 
nonsensical  a  fancy.  But  now,  with  a  nod,  she  ac- 
quiesced. Nay,  more,  she  openly  agreed. 

"  We  who  live  in  a  sunless  room  in  the  midst  of 
paint-pots,  know  nothing-  of  the  beauty  of  the  world." 

"  That's  true,"  said  Tommy. 

"  We  hope,  when  we're  tired,  that  there  is  such  a 
place  as  the  Land  of  Dreams,  but  we  imagine  it's 
somewhere  east  of  the  sun,  and  wrest  of  the  moon.  We 
don't  realise  that  all  we've  got  to  do  to  get  there  is  to 
walk  out  of  our  front  door." 

"  It  all  depends  upon  the  inward  eye,  doesn't  it  ?  " 
said  the  boy.  "  Or,  perhaps,  indeed,  it  needs  a  double 
inward  eye — two  personalities,  you  know,  harmonised 
in  a  subtle  sort  of  way,  so  as  to  bring  it  into  focus. 
You  see  what  I  mean?  I  don't  think  I  could  get  the 
whole  dreamy  adorableness  of  this  if  I  hadn't  you 
beside  me." 

"  Do  you  mean  that,  Tommy  ?  "  she  asked,  with 
eyes  fixed  on  the  Rhone. 

"Of  course  I  do,"  he  replied,  earnestly. 

Her  lips  worked  themselves  into  a  smile. 

"  I  never  thought  my  personality  could  harmonise 
with  any  other  on  God's  earth." 

'  You've  lived  a  life  of  horrible,  rank  injustice." 

She  started,  as  if  hurt.    "  Ah !  don't  say  that." 

'''  To  yourself,  I  mean,  dearest  Clementina.  You've 
never  allowed  yourself  a  good  quality.  Now  you're 
beginning  to  find  out  your  mistake." 

"  When  it's  pointed  out  that  I  can  harmonise  with 
your  beautiful  nature!  " 

At  the  flash  of  the  old  Clementina,  Tommy  laughed. 

"  I'm  not  going  to  deny  that  there's  good  in  me. 
Why  should  I?  If  there  wasn't,  I  shouldn't  be  here. 
You  wouldn't  have  asked  me  to  be  your  companion," 
he  added  quickly,  fearing  lest  she  might  put  a  wrong 


132     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

construction  on  his  words.  "  When  a  good  woman 
does  a  man  the  honour  of  admitting  him  to  her  inti- 
mate companionship,  he  .knows  he's  good — and  it 
makes  him  feel  better." 

Her  left  elbow  rested  on  the  parapet  of  the  bridge, 
and  her  chin  rested  on  the  palm  of  her  hand.  Without 
looking  at  him  she  stretched  out  the  other  hand  and 
touched  him. 

"  Thank  you  for  saying  that,  Tommy,"  she  said  in 
a  low  voice. 

Their  mutual  relations  had  modified  considerably 
during  the  journey.  The  change,  in  the  first  place, 
had  come  instinctively  from  Tommy.  Hitherto,  Clem- 
entina had  represented  little  to  his  ingenuous  mind 
but  the  rough-and-ready  comrade,  the  good  sort,  the 
stunning  portrait-painter.  With  many  of  his  men 
friends  he  was  on  practically  the  same  terms.  Quite 
unconsciously  he  patronised  her  ever  so  little,  as  the 
Prince  Charmings  of  life's  fairy-tale  are  apt  to  patron- 
ise those  who  are  not  quite  so  charming  or  quite  so 
princely  as  themselves.  When  he  had  dined  with  the 
proud  and  gorgeous  he  loved  to  strut  before  her  aure- 
oled  in  his  reflected  splendour;  not  for  a  moment  re- 
membering that  had  Clementina  chosen  to  throw  off 
her  social  nonconformity  she  could  have  sat  in  high 
places  at  the  houses  of  such  a  proud  and  gorgeous 
hierarchy  as  he,  Tommy  Burgrave,  could  not  hope, 
for  many  years,  to  consort  with.  Sometimes  he 
treated  her  as  an  old  family  nurse,  who  spoiled  him, 
sometimes  as  a  bearded  master ;  he  teased  her,  chaffed 
her,  laid  traps  to  catch  her  sharp  sayings ;  greeted  her 
with  "  Hullo,"  and  parted  from  her  with  an  airy  wave 
of  the  hand.  But  as  soon  as  they  set  off  on  their 
travels  the  subtle  change  took  place,  for  which  the 
fact  of  his  being  her  guest  could  only,  in  small  degree, 
account.  Being  in  charge  of  all  arrangements,  and 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     133 

thus  asserting  his  masculinity,  he  saw  Clementina  in  a 
new  light.  For  all  her  unloveliness  she  was  a  woman ; 
for  all  her  lack  of  convention  she  was  a  lady  born  and 
bred.  She  was  as  much  under  his  protection  as  any 
dame  or  damsel  of  the  proud  and  gorgeous  to  whom 
he  might  have  had  the  honour  to  act  as  escort;  and 
without  a  moment's  self-consciousness  he  began  to 
treat  Clementina  with  the  same  courteous  solicitude  as 
he  would  have  treated  such  dame  or  damsel,  or,  for 
the  matter  of  that,  any  other  woman  of  his  acquaint- 
ance. Whereas,  a  month  or  two  before  he  would  have 
tramped  by  her  side  for  miles  without  the  thought  of 
her  possible  fatigue  entering  his  honest  head,  now  her 
inability  to  stroll  about  the  streets  of  these  little  pro- 
vincial towns,  without  physical  exhaustion,  caused  him 
grave  anxiety.  He  administered  to  her  comfort  in  a 
thousand  ways.  He  saw  to  the  proper  working  of  the 
shutters  in  her  room,  to  the  smooth  opening  of  the 
drawers  and  presses;  put  the  fear  of  God  into  the 
hearts  of  chamber-maids  and  valets  through  the  me- 
dium of  a  terrific  lingua  franca  of  his  own  invention; 
supplied  her  with  flowers;  rose  early  every  morning 
to  scour  the  town  for  a  New  York  Herald  so  that  it 
could  be  taken  up  to  Clementina's  room  with  her 
coffee,  and  petit  croissant.  His  habit  of  speech,  too, 
became  more  deferential,  and  his  discourse  gained  in 
depth  and  sincerity  what  it  lost  in  picturesque  ver- 
nacular. To  sum  up  the  whole  of  the  foregoing  in  a 
phrase,  Tommy's  attitude  towards  Clementina  grew  to 
be  that  of  an  extremely  nice  boy  towards  an  extremely 
nice  maiden  aunt. 

This  change  of  attitude  acted  very  powerfully  on 
Clementina.  As  she  had  remarked,  it  was  a  new  sensa- 
tion to  be  taken  care  of:  one  which  she  liked  very 
much  indeed.  All  the  sternly  repressed  feminine  in 
her — all  that  she  called  the  silly  fool  woman — re- 


134     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

sponded  to  the  masculine  strength  and  delicacy  of 
touch.  She,  on  her  side,  saw  Tommy  in  a  new  light. 
He  had  developed  from  the  boy  into  the  man.  He  was 
responsible,  practical,  imperious  in  his  frank,  kindly, 
Anglo-Saxon  way.  It  was  a  new  joy  for  the  woman, 
who,  since  girlhood,  had  fought  single-handed  for  her 
place  in  the  world,  to  sit  still  and  do  nothing  while 
difficulties  vanished  before  his  bright  presence  just  as 
the  crests  of  alarming  steeps  vanished  before  the  irre- 
sistible rush  of  the  car. 

Once  when  a  loud  report  and  the  grinding  of  the 
wheels  announced  a  puncture,  she  cried  involuntarily : 

"I'm  so  glad!" 

Tommy  laughed.  "  Well,  of  all  the  feminine  rea- 
sons for  gladness!" — Clementina  basked  in  her  fem- 
ininity like  a  lizard  in  the  sun.  "  I  suppose  it's  because 
you  can  sit  in  the  shade  and  watch  Johnson  and  me 
toiling  and  broiling  like  niggers  on  the  road." 

She  blushed  beneath  her  swarthy  skin.  That  was 
just  it.  She  loved  to  see  him  throw  off  his  coat  and 
grapple  like  a  young  Hercules  with  the  tyre.  For 
Johnson's  much  more  efficient  exertions  she  cared  not 
a  scrap. 

Her  heart  was  full  of  new  delights.  It  was  a  new 
delight  to  feel  essentially  what  she  in  her  irony  used 
to  term  a  lady;  to  be  addressed  with  deference  and 
tenderness,  to  have  her  desires  executed  just  that  in- 
stant before  specific  formulation  which  gives  charm 
and  surprise.  Every  day  she  discovered  a  new  and 
unsuspected  quality  in  Tommy,  and  every  evening  she 
dwelt  upon  the  sweetness,  freshness,  and  strength  of 
his  nature.  The  lavender  fragrance,  the  nice  maiden- 
aunt-ity  of  her  relations  with  Tommy,  I  am  afraid 
she  missed. 

It  gave  her  an  odd  little  thrill  of  pleasure  when 
Tommy  propounded  his  theory  of  the  perfect  focal 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     135 

adjustment  of  the  good  in  their  natures.  When  he 
implicitly  gave  her  rank  as  angel  she  was  deeply 
moved.  So  she  stretched  out  her  hand  and  touched 
him  and  said,  "  Thank  you." 

"  You  said  nothing  about  my  proposal  to  stay  here 
for  ever,"  he  remarked,  after  a  while. 

"  I'm  quite  ready,"  she  replied  absently.  "  Why 
shouldn't  we  ?  " 

Tommy  pointed  out  a  white  chateau  that  flashed 
through  the  greenery  of  the  hill  behind  the  cathedral. 

"That's  the  place  we'll  take.  We'll  fill  it  with 
books — chiefly  sermons,  and  flowers — chiefly  poppies, 
and  we'll  smoke  hashish  instead  of  tobacco,  and  we'll 
sleep  and  paint  dream-pictures  all  the  rest  of  our 
lives." 

"  I  suppose  you  can't  conceive  life — even  a  dream 
life — without  pictures  to  paint  in  it  ?  " 

"  Not  exactly,"  said  he.  "  Can  you?  " 

"  I  shouldn't  be  painting  pictures  in  my  dream- 
life." 

"  What  would  you  be  doing?" 

But  Clementina  did  not  reply.  She  looked  at  the 
brave  old  sentinel  fort  glowing  red  in  the  splendour 
of  the  westering  sun.  Tommy  continued — "I'm  sure 
you  would  be  painting.  How  do  you  think  a  musician 
could  face  an  existence  without  music?  or  a  golfer 
without  golf?"  and  he  broke  into  his  fresh  laugh. 
"  I  wonder  what  dream-golf  would  be  like?  It  would 
be  a  sort  of  mixed  arrangement,  I  guess,  with  5tars 
for  balls  and  clouds  for  bunkers  and  meads  of  aspho- 
dels for  putting  greens."  He  suddenly  lifted  his 
.hands,  palm  facing  palm,  and  looked  through  them  at 
the  framed  picture.  "  Clementina  dear,  if  I  don't  get 
that  old  Tour  de  la  Batie  with  the  sunset  on  it,  I'll 
die.  It  will  take  eternity  to  get  it  right,  and  that's 
why  we  must  stay  here  forever." 


136     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

"  We'll  stay  as  long1  as  you  like,"  said  Clementina, 
"  and  you  can  paint  to  your  heart's  content." 

"  You're  the  dearest  thing  in  the  world,"  said 
Tommy. 

Dinner  time  drew  near.  They  left  the  bridge  re- 
luctantly, and  mounted  the  great  broad  flight  of  forty 
steps  that  led  to  the  west  door  of  the  Cathedral.  A 
few  of  the  narrow  side  streets  brought  them  into  the 
Place  Miremont,  where  their  hotel  was  situated.  In 
the  lazy  late  afternoon  warmth  it  looked  the  laziest 
and  most  peaceful  spot  inhabited  by  man.  The  square, 
classic  Town  Library,  hermetically  closed,  its  inner 
mysteries  hidden  behind  drawn  blinds,  stood  in  its 
midst  like  a  mausoleum  of  dead  and  peaceful 
thoughts.  Nothing  living  troubled  it  save  a  mongrel 
dog  asleep  on  the  steps.  No  customer  ruffled  the  tran- 
quillity of  the  shops  around  the  Place.  A  red-trou- 
sered, blue-coated  little  soldier — so  little  that  he  looked 
like  a  toy  soldier — and  an  old  man  in  a  blouse,  who 
walked  very  slowly  in  the  direction  of  the  cafe,  were 
the  only  humans  on  foot.  Even  the  hotel  omnibus, 
rattling  suddenly  into  the  square,  failed  to  break  the 
spell  of  quietude.  For  it  was  empty,  and  its  empti- 
ness gave  a  pleasurable  sense"  of  distance  from  the 
fever  and  the  fret  of  life. 

It  is  even  said  that  Pontius  Pilate  found  peace  in 
Vienne,  lying,  according  to  popular  tradition,  under 
a  comparatively  modern  monolith  termed  the  Aiguille. 

"  Are  you  quite  sure  this  place  isn't  too  dead-and- 
alive  for  you?  "  Clementina  asked,  as  they  approached 
the  hotel. 

He  slid  his  hand  under  her  arm. 

"  Oh  no !  "  he  cried,  with  a  little  reassuring  squeeze. 
"  It's  heavenly." 

While  she  was  cleansing  herself  for  dinner,  Clemen- 
tina looked  in  the  glass.  Her  hair,  as  usual,  straggled 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     137 

untidily  over  her  temples.  She  wore  it  bunched  up 
anyhow  in  a  knot  behind,  and  the  resentful  hair-pins 
invariably  failed  in  their  office.  This  evening  she  re- 
moved the  faithful  few,  the  saving  remnant  that  for 
the  world's  good  remains  in  all  communities,  even  of 
hair-pins,  and  her  hair  thick  and  black  fell  about  her 
shoulders.  She  combed  it,  brushed  it,  brought  it  up 
to  the  top  of  her  head  and  twisting  it  into  a  neat  coil 
held  it  there  with  her  hand,  and  for  a  moment  or  two 
studied  the  effect  somewhat  dreamily.  Then,  all  of  a 
sudden,  a  change  of  mood  swept  over  her.  She  let 
the  hair  down  again,  almost  savagely  wound  it  into  its 
accustomed  clump  into  which  she  thrust  hair-pins  at 
random,  and  turned  away  from  the  mirror,  her  mouth 
drawn  into  its  old  grim  lines. 

Tommy  found  her  rather  uncommunicative  at  din- 
ner which  was  served  to  them  at  a  separate  side  table. 
At  the  table  d'hote  in  the  middle  of  the  room,  eight 
or  nine  men,  habitues  and  commercial  travellers  fed 
in  stolid  silence.  She  ate  little.  Tommy,  noticing  it, 
openly  reproached  himself  for  having  caused  her  fa- 
tigue. The  day  in  the  open  air — and  open  air  pumped 
into  the  lungs  at  the  rate  of  thirty  or  forty  miles  an 
hour — was  of  itself  tiring.  He  ought  not  to  have 
dragged  her  about  the  town.  Besides,  he  added  with 
an  appearance  of  great  wisdom,  a  surfeit  of  beauty 
gave  one  a  soul-ache.  They  had  feasted  on  notning 
but  beauty  since  they  had  left  Chalon-sur-Saone  that 
morning.  He,  too,  had  a  touch  of  soul-ache;  but 
luckily  it  did  not  interfere  with  his  carnal  appetite. 
It  ought  not  to  interfere  with  Clementina's.  Here 
was  the  whitest  and  tenderest  morsel  of  chicken  that 
ever  was  and  the  crispest  bit  of  delectable  salad.  He 
helped  her  from  the  dish  which  she  had  refused  at  the 
hands  of  the  waiter,  and  she  ate  meekly.  But  after 
dinner,  she  sent  him  off  to  the  cafe  by  himself,  saying 


138     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

that  she  would  read  a  novel  in  the  salon  and  go  to 
bed  early. 

The  loneliness  of  the  salon,  instead  of  resting  her, 
got  on  her  nerves,  which  angered  her.  What  busi- 
ness had  she,  Clementina  Wing,  with  nerves?  Or 
was  Tommy  right?  Perhaps  it  was  soul-ache  from 
which  she  was  suffering.  Certainly,  one  strove  to  pack 
away  into  oneself  anything  of  beauty,  making  it  a 
part  of  one's  spiritual  being.  One  could  be  a  glutton 
and  suffer  from  the  consequences.  The  soul-ache,  if 
such  it  were,  had  nothing  of  origin  in  the  emotions 
that  had  prompted  her  touch  on  Tommy's  arm,  or 
the  coiling  of  her  hair  on  the  top  of  her  head.  Noth- 
ing at  all.  Besides,  it  was  a  very  silly  novel,  a  modern 
French  version  of  Daphnis  and  Chloe,  in  which  Daph- 
nis  figured  as  a  despicable  young  neuropath  whom 
Tommy  would  have  kicked  on  sight,  and  Chloe,  a  de- 
mure hussy  whom  a  sensible  mother  would  have 
spanked.  She  threw  it  into  a  corner  and  went  to  her 
room  to  brace  her  mind  with  Tristram  Shandy. 

She  had  not  been  long  there,  however,  when  there 
came  a  knocking  at  her  door.  On  her  invitation  to 
enter,  the  door  opened  and  Tommy  stood  breathless 
on  the  threshold.  His  eyes  were  bright  and  he  was 
quivering  with  excitement. 

"  Do  come  out.  Do  come  out  and  see  something. 
I  hit  upon  it  unawares,  and  it  knocked  me  silly.  I've 
run  all  the  way  back  to  fetch  you." 

"What  is  it?" 

"  Something  too  exquisite  for  words." 

"  What  about  the  soul-ache?  " 

"  Oh!  Let  us  have  an  orgy  while  we're  about  it," 
he  cried  recklessly.  "  It's  worth  it.  Do  come.  I 
want  you  to  feel  the  thing  with  me." 

The  appeal  was  irresistible.  It  was  spirit  summon- 
ing spirit.  Without  thinking,  but  dimly  conscious  of 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     139 

a  quick  throbbing  of  the  heart,  Clementina  put  on  her 
hat  and  went  with  Tommy  out  of  the  hotel.  The  full 
moon  blazed  from  a  cloudless  sky,  flooding  the  little 
silent  square.  She  paused  on  the  pavement. 

"  Yes,  it's  beautiful,"  she  said. 

"  Oh — that's  only  the  silly  old  moon,"  cried  Tommy. 
"  I've  got  something  much  better  for  you  than  that." 

"  What  is  it  ?  "  she  asked  again. 

"  You  wait,"  said  he. 

He  took  her  across  the  square,  through  two  or  three 
turns  of  narrow  cobble-paved  streets,  whirled  her 
swiftly  round  a  corner  and  said: 

"Look!" 

Clementina  looked,  and  walked  straight  into  the  liv- 
ing heart  of  the  majesty  that  once  was  Rome.  There, 
in  the  midst  of  an  open  space,  the  modern  houses 
around  it  obscured,  softened,  de-characterised  by  the 
magic-working  moon,  stood  in  its  proud  and  perfect 
beauty  the  Temple  of  Augustus  and  Livia.  Twenty 
centuries,  with  all  their  meaning,  vanished  in  a  sec- 
ond. It  was  the  heart  of  Rome.  There  was  the  great 
Temple,  perfect,  imperishable,  with  its  fluted  Corin- 
thian columns,  its  entablature,  its  pediment,  its  noble 
cornice  throwing  endless  mysteries  of  shadow.  No( 
ruin,  from  which  imagination  flogged  by  scholarship  , 
might  dimly  picture  forth  what  once  had  been;  but 
the  Temple  itself,  untouched,  haughty,  defying  Time, 
the  companion  for  two  thousand  years  of  the  moon 
that  now  bathed  it  lovingly,  as  a  friend  of  two  thou- 
sand years'  standing  must  do,  in  its  softest  splendour, 
and  sharing  with  the  moon  its  godlike  scorn  of  the 
hectic  and  transitory  life  of  man. 

Clementina  drew  a  sharp  breath  of  wonder.  Mois- 
ture clouded  her  eyes.  She  could  not  speak  for  the 
suddenness  of  the  shock  of  beauty.  Tommy  gently 
took  her  arm,  and  they  stood  for  a  long  time  in  si- 


i4o     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

lence,  close  together.  In  their  artists'  sensitiveness 
they  were  very  near  together,  too,  in  spirit.  She 
glanced  at  his  face  in  the  moonlight,  alive  with  the 
joy  of  the  thing,  and  her  heart  gave  a  sudden  leap. 
All  the  beauty  of  the  day  translated  itself  into  some- 
thing even  more  radiant  that  flooded  her  soul,  caus- 
ing the  rows  of  fluted  columns  to  swim  before  her 
eyes  until  she  shut  them  with  a  little  sigh  of  content. 

At  last  they  moved  and  walked  slowly  round  the 
building. 

"  I  just  couldn't  help  fetching  you,"  said  Tommy. 

"  Oh,  I'm  glad  you  did.  Oh,  so  glad.  Why  didn't 
we  know  of  this  before  we  came." 

"  Because  we  are  two  thrice-blessedly  ignorant  cock- 
neys, dear.  I  hate  to  know  what  I'm  going  to  see. 
It's  much  better  to  be  like  stout  Cortez  and  his  men 
in  the  poem  and  discover  things,  isn't  it?  By  Jove, 
I  shall  never  forget  running  into  this." 

"  Nor  I,"  said  Clementina. 

"  The  moment  the  car  turned  the  bend  to-day  I 
knew  something  was  going  to  happen  here." 

More  had  happened  than  Tommy  dreamed  of  in  hrs 
young  philosophy.  Nor  did  Clementina  enlighten  him. 
She  slid  his  arm  from  under  hers  and  took  it,  and 
leaned  ever  so  little  on  it,  for  the  first  time  for  many, 
many  years  a  happy  woman. 

When  they  left  the  Temple  she  pleaded  for  an  ex- 
tension of  their  walk.  She  was  no  longer  tired.  She 
could  go  on  forever  beneath  such  a  moon. 

"  A  night  made  for  lovers,"  said  Tommy,  "  and  we 
aren't  the  only  ones — look !  " 

And  indeed  there  were  couples  sauntering  by,  head 
to  head,  talking  of  the  things  the  moon  had  heard  so 
many  million  times  before. 

"  I  suppose  they  take  us  also  for  lovers,"  said  Clem- 
entina foolishly. 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     141 

"  I  don't  care  if  they  do,"  said  Tommy.  "  Let  us 
pretend." 

"  Yes,"  said  Clementina.  "  Let  us  pretend." 

They  wandered  thus  lover-like  through  the  town, 
and  came  on  the  quay  where  they  sat  on  the  coping  of 
the  parapet,  and  watched  the  moonlit  Rhone  and  the 
brave  old  Chateau-Fort  on  the  hill. 

"  Are  you  glad  you  came  with  me?  "  she  asked. 

"  It  has  been  a  sort  of  enchanted  journey,"  he  re- 
plied, seriously.  "  And  to-night — well,  to-night  is  just 
to-night.  There  are  no  words  for  it.  I've  never 
thanked  you — there  are  things  too  deep  for  thanks. 
In  return  I  would  give  you  everything  I've  got — in 
myself,  you  know — if  you  wanted  it.  In  fact,"  he 
added,  with  a  boyish  laugh,  "  I've  given  it  to  you  al- 
ready whether  you  want  it  or  not." 

"  I  do  want  it,  Tommy,"  she  said,  with  a  catch  in 
her  voice.  "  You  don't  know  how  much  I  want  it." 

"  Then  you  have  a  devoted,  devoted,  devoted  slave 
for  the  rest  of  your  life." 

"  I  do  believe  you  are  fond  of  me." 

"Fond  of  you!"  he  cried.  "Why,  of  course,  I 
am.  There's  not  another  woman  like  you  in  the 
world."  He  took  her  hand  and  kissed  it.  "  Bless 
you,"  he  said.  Then  he  rose.  "  We've  sat  out  here 
long  enough.  Your  hands  are  quite  cold  and  you've 
only  that  silly  blouse  on.  You'll  catch  a  chill." 

"I'm  quite  warm,"  said  Clementina  mendaciously; 
but  she  obeyed  him  with  surprising  meekness. 

If  any  one  had  had  a  sufficiently  fantastic  imagina- 
tion and  sufficient  audacity  to  prophesy  to  Clementina 
before  she  started  from  London  the  effect  upon  her 
temperament  of  a  Roman  Temple  and  moonshine,  she 
would  have  said  things  in  her  direct  way  uncompli- 
mentary to  his  intelligence.  She  would  have  forgot- 
ten her  own  epigram  to  the  effect  that  woman  always 


142     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

has  her  sex  hanging  round  the  neck  of  her  spirit.  But 
her  epigram  had  proved  its  truth.  She  was  feeling  a 
peculiar  graciousness  in  the  focal  adjustment  above 
considered,  was  letting  her  spirit  soar  with  its  brother 
to  planes  of  pure  beauty,  when  lo!  suddenly,  spirit 
was  hurled  from  the  empyrean  into  the  abyss  by  the 
thing  clinging  round  its  neck,  which  took  its  place 
on  the  said  planes  with  a  pretty  gurgle  of  exulta- 
tion. 

That  is  what  had  happened. 

And  is  it  not  all  too  natural?  There  are  plants 
which  will  keep  within  them  a  pallid  life  in  a  coal- 
cellar — but  put  in  the  sun  and  the  air  and  the  rain 
will  break  magically  into  riotous  leaf  and  bud  and 
flower.  Love,  foolish,  absurd,  lunatic,  reprehensible — 
what  you  will — had  come  into  the  sun  and  the  air  and 
the  rain,  and  it  had  broken  magically  into  blossom. 
Of  course,  she  had  no  business  to  bring  it  into  the  air; 
she  ought  to  have  kept  it  in  the  coal-cellar ;  she  ought 
not  to  have  let  the  door  be  opened  by  the  wheedlings 
of  a  captivating  youth.  In  plain  language,  a  woman 
of  six-and-thirty  ought  never  to  have  fallen  in  love 
with  a  boy  of  twenty-three.  Of  course  not.  A  vehe- 
ment passionate  nature  is  the  easiest  thing  in  the  world 
to  keep  under  control.  A  respectable  piece  of  British 
tape  ought  to  be  strong  enough  leash  for  any  tiger 
of  the  jungle. 

That  Clementina,  ill-favoured  and  dour,  should  have 
given  herself  up,  in  the  solitude  of  her  room,  to  her 
intoxication  is,  no  doubt,  a  matter  of  censure.  It  was 
mad  and  bad  and  sad,  but  it  was  sweet.  It  was  hu- 
man. The  rare  ones  from  whom  no  secrets  of  a 
woman's  pure  heart  are  hid  might  say  that  it  was 
divine.  But  the  many  who  pity  let  them  not  grudge 
her  hour  of  joy  to  a  woman  of  barren  life. 

But  it  was  only  an  hour.    The  grey  dawn  crept  into 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     143 

the  sleepless  room,  and  the  glamour  of  the  moonlight 
had  gone.  And  there  was  a  desperate  struggle  in  the 
woman's  soul.  The  boy's  words  rang  in  her  ears. 
He  was  fond  of  her,  devoted  to  her,  would  give  up 
his  life  to  her.  He  spoke  sincerely.  Why  should  she 
not  take  the  words  at  a  little  above  their  face-value? 
No  strong-natured  woman  of  six-and-thirty,  with 
Clementina's  fame  and  wealth  and  full  great  sym- 
pathy need  fear  rebuff  from  a  generous  lad  who  pro- 
fesses himself  to  be  her  devoted,  devoted,  devoted 
slave.  All  she  has  to  do  is  to  put  up  the  barms. 
Whether  ultimate  bliss  will  be  achieved  is  another  mat- 
ter. But  to  marry  him  out  of  hand  is  as  easy  as  lying. 
It  did  not  need  Clementina's  acute  intelligence  for  her 
to  be  fully  aware  of  this.  And  another  temptation 
crept  over  her  pillow  to  her  ear,  peculiarly  insidious. 
The  boy  would  be  free  to  pursue  his  beloved  art  with- 
out sordid  cares.  There  would  be  no  struggle  and 
starvation  and  fringed  hems  to  his  trousers.  A  woman 
who  really  loves  a  man  would  sooner  her  heart  were 
frayed  than  his  trouser-hems. 

She  rose  and  threw  wide  the  shutters.  The  little 
Place  Miremont  looked  ghostly  in  the  white  light, 
and  the  classic  Bibliotheque,  with  its  round-headed 
windows,  more  than  ever  a  calm  mausoleum  of  hu- 
man wisdom.  It  is  strange  how  coldly  suggestive  of 
death  is  the  birth  of  day. 

Clementina  crept  back  to  bed  and,  tired  out,  fell 
asleep.  The  waiter  bringing  in  the  breakfast  tray 
awakened  her.  On  the  New  York  Herald  which 
Tommy  had  gone  to  the  railway  station  to  procure, 
lay  a  dewy  cluster  of  red  and  yellow  roses ;  on  a  plate 
a  pile  of  letters,  the  top  one  addressed  in  Etta  Concan- 
non's  great  girlish  scrawl. 

Why  in  the  world  should  a  bunch  of  parrot-tulips 
have  flared  before  her  eyes?  They  did.  They  had 


144     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

marked  the  beginning  of  it.  The  red  and  yellow  roses 
marked  the  end. 

"  Attendee  un  moment,"  she  said  to  the  waiter, 
while  she  tore  open  the  envelope  and  glanced  through 
Etta's  unimportant  letter.  "  Bring  me  a  telegraph 
form." 

He  produced  one  from  his  pocket.  If  you  ask  a 
waiter  in  a  good  French  provincial  hotel  for  anything 
— a  copy  of  Buckle's  History  of  Civilisation  or  a  boot- 
jack— he  will  produce  it  from  his  pocket.  He  also 
handed  her  a  pencil. 

This  she  bit  musingly  for  a  few  seconds.  Then  she 
scribbled  hastily  on  a  telegraph  form : 

"  Join  me  at  once.  Book  straight  through  to  Lyons. 
Wire  train.  Will  meet  you  at  station.  Promise  you" 
— Her  lips  twisted  into  a  wry  smile  as  the  word  she 
sought  entered  her  head — "  heavenly  time.  My  guest 
of  course.  Clementina.  Hotel  du  Nord,  Vienne." 

"  By  the  way,  garqon"  she  said,  handing  him  the 
telegram,  "  why  is  this  called  the  Hotel  du  Nord  ?  " 

"  Parceque,  Madame,  c'est  id,  a  Vienne,  que  com" 
mence  le  Midi"  replied  the  waiter. 

He  bowed  himself  out.  A  courtier  of  Versailles  at 
the  levee  of  the  Pompadour  could  not  have  made  his 
speech  and  exit  with  better  grace. 

Later  in  the  day  Clementina  received  the  reply  from 
Etta. 

"  You  darling,  starting  to-morrow.  Arrive  Lyons 
seven  o'clock  morning  Thursday." 

Tommy,  fired  by  the  picture  made  by  the  bend  of 
the  Rhone  and  the  Chateau-Fort  de  la  Batie,  spent 
most  of  the  day  on  the  quay,  with  the  paraphernalia 
of  his  trade,  easel  and  canvas  and  box  of  colours  and 
brushes,  painting  delightedly,  while  Clementina,  be- 
neath an  uncompromising  white  umbrella  with  a  green 
lining,  bought  on  her  travels,  sat  near  by  reading 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     145 

many  tales  out  of  one  uncomprehended  novel.  Just 
before  dinner  she  informed  him  of  the  almost  imme- 
diate arrival  of  Etta  Concannon. 

"Oh,  I  say!"  he  exclaimed  in  an  injured  voice. 
"  That  spoils  everything." 

"  I  don't  think  so,"  said  Clementina. 


CHAPTER  XI 

CLEMENTINA  motored  to  Lyons  by  herself, 
dined  in  gaunt  and  lonely  splendour  at  the 
Grand  Hotel,  and  met  Etta  Concannon's  train 
very  early  the  next  morning.  Etta,  dewy  fresh  after 
her  all-night  train  journey,  threw  her  arms  round  her 
neck  and  kissed  her  effusively.  She  was  a  heaven- 
born  darling,  a  priceless  angel,  and  various  other  hy- 
perbolical things.  Yes,  she  had  had  a  comfortable 
journey;  no  trouble  at  all;  all  sorts  of  nice  men  had 
come  to  her  aid  at  the  various  stages.  She  had  been 
up  since  five  standing  in  the  corridor  and  looking  at 
the  country  which  was  fascinating.  She  had  no  idea 
it  was  so  full  of  interest. 

"  And  did  one  of  the  nice  men  get  up  at  five,  too, 
and  stand  in  the  corridor  ?  "  asked  Clementina. 

The  girl  flushed  and  laughed.  "  How  did  you  guess? 
I  couldn't  help  it.  How  could  I?  And  it  was  quite 
safe.  He  was  ever  so  old." 

"  I'm  glad  I've  got  you  in  charge  now,"  said  Clem- 
entina. 

"  I'll  be  so  good,  dear,"  said  the  girl. 

The*  luggage  secured,  they  drove  off.  Etta's  eyes 
sparkled,  as  they  went  through  the  ugly,  monotonous, 
clattering  streets  of  Lyons. 

"  What  an  adorable  town !  " 

As  it  was  not  even  lit  by  the  cheap  glamour  of  the 
sun,  for  the  sky  was  overcast  and  threatening,  it 
looked  peculiarly  depressing  to  normal  vision.  But 
youth  found  it  adorable.  O  thrice  blessed  blindness 
of  youth! 

"  What  has  happened  to  Mr.  Burgrave  ?  "  she  asked 
146 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     147 

after  a  while.  "  I  suppose  his  time  was  up  and  he  had 
to  go  back." 

"  Oh,  no,"  said  Clementina  coolly.  "  He's  at 
Vienne." 

"  Oh-h !  "  said  Etta,  with  a  little  touch  of  reproach. 
"  I  thought  it  was  just  going  to  be  you  and  I  and  us 
two." 

"  We'll  put  him  in  front  next  to  Johnson  and  have 
the  back  of  the  car  all  to  ourselves.  But  I  thought  you 
liked  Tommy  Burgrave." 

"  He's  quite  harmless,"  said  Etta  carelessly. 

"  And  he  thinks  of  nothing  in  the  world  but  his 
painting,  so  he  won't  bother  his  head  much  about  you," 
said  Clementina. 

Etta  fell  at  once  into  the  trap.  "  I'm  not  go- 
ing to  let  him  treat  me  as  if  I  didn't  exist,"  she 
cried.  "  I'm  afraid  you've  been  spoiling  him,  darling. 
Men  ought  to  be  shown  their  place  and  taught  how 
to  behave." 

His  behaviour,  however,  on  their  first  meeting  was 
remarkably  correct.  The  car,  entering  Vienne,  drew 
up  by  the  side  of  the  quay  where  he  had  pitched  his 
easel.  He  rose  and  ran  to  greet  its  occupants  with  the 
most  welcoming  of  smiles,  which  were  not  all  directed 
at  Clementina.  Etta  had  her  share.  It  is  not  in  the 
nature  of  three-and-twenty  to  look  morosely  on  so 
dainty  a  daughter  of  Eve — all  the  daintier  by  con- 
trast with  the  dowdy  elder  woman  by  her  side.  Tom- 
my had  spoken  truly  when  he  had  professed  his  down- 
right honest  affection  for  Clementina ;  truly  also  when 
he  had  deprecated  the  summoning  of  the  interloping 
damsel.  But  he  had  not  counted  on  the  effect  of  con- 
trast. He  had  seen  Etta  in  his  mind's  eye  as  just  an 
ordinary  young  woman  who  would  disturb  that  har- 
monious adjustment  of  artistic  focus  on  whose  discov- 
ery he  had  prided  himself  so  greatly.  Now  he  realised 


i48     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

her  freshness  and  dewiness  and  goodness  to  look  upon. 
She  adorned  the  car;  made  quite  a  different  vehicle  of 
it.  Standing  by  the  door  he  noticed  how  passers-by 
turned  round  and  glanced  at  her  with  the  frank  ad- 
miration of  their  race.  Tommy  at  once  felt  himself  to 
be  an  enviable  fellow;  he  was  going  to  take  a  great 
pride  in  her;  at  the  lowest,  as  a  mere  travelling  ad- 
junct, she  did  him  credit.  Clementina  watched  him 
shrewdly,  and  the  corners  of  her  mouth  curled  in  an 
ironical  twist. 

"  It  isn't  my  fault,  Miss  Concannon,  that  I  didn't 
come  to  Lyons  to  meet  you.  Clementina  wouldn't  let 
me.  You  know  what  a  martinet  she  is.  So  I  was  here 
all  last  evening  simply  languishing  in  loneliness." 

"  Why  wouldn't  you  let  poor  Mr.  Burgrave  come  to 
Lyons,  Clementina  ?  "  laughed  Etta. 

"If  you  begin  to  pester  me  with  questions,"  replied 
Clementina,  "  I'll  pack  you  off  to  England  again." 

"  All  enquiries  to  be  addressed  to  the  courier,"  said 
Tommy. 

"  And  you'll  answer  them  ?  " 

"  Every  one,"  said  Tommy. 

Thus  the  freemasonry  of  youth  was  at  once  estab- 
lished between  them.  Etta  smiled  sweetly  on  him  as 
the  car  drove  off  to  the  hotel,  and  Tommy  returned  to 
his  easel  with  the  happy  impression  that  everything, 
especially  the  intervention  of  interloping  damsels,  was 
for  the  best  in  this  best  of  all  possible  worlds. 

They  met  shortly  afterwards  at  dejeuner,  the 
brightest  of  meals,  whereat  Etta  talked  her  girlish 
nonsense,  which  Tommy  took  for  peculiarly  sparkling 
discourse.  Clementina,  wearing  the  mask  of  the  in- 
dulgent chaperon,  let  the  babble  flow  unchecked. 

"Do  you  think  Etta  will  spoil  everything?"  she 
asked  him  as  soon  as  they  were  alone  for  a  moment. 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     149 

"  Oh,  no,"  cried  the  ingenuous  Tommy.  "  She's 
going  to  be  great  fun." 

"H'm!"  said  Clementina,  feeling  as  though  she 
might  make  the  historic  reply  of  the  frog  at  whom  the 
boys  threw  stones.  But  she  had  deliberately  brought 
about  the  lapidation.  She  winced;  but  she  could  not 
complain. 

It  must  not  be  imagined,  however,  that  Tommy 
transferred  his  allegiance  in  youth's  debonair,  thought- 
less way  to  the  newer  and  prettier  princess.  On  the 
contrary,  in  all  the  little  outward  shows  of  devotion 
he  demonstrated  himself  more  zealously  than  ever  to 
be  Clementina's  vassal.  In  the  excursions  that  they 
made  during  the  next  few  days  keeping  Vienne  as  a 
base — to  La  Tour  du  Pin,  Grenoble,  Saint-Marcellin, 
Mont-Pilat — it  was  to  Clementina  that  he  turned  and 
pointed  out  the  beauties  of  the  road,  and  her  unsteady 
footsteps  that  he  guided  over  rough  and  declivitous 
paths.  To  her  he  also  turned  for  serious  conversa- 
tion. The  flowers  and  The  New  York  Herald  came  to 
her  room  as  unfailingly  as  the  morning  coffee.  He 
manifested  the  same  tender  solicitude  as  to  her  possible 
sufferings  from  hunger,  drought,  dust  or  fatigue.  He 
paid  her  regal  honour.  In  this  he  was  aided  and  abet- 
ted by  Etta  Concannon,  who  had  her  own  pretty  ways 
of  performing  homage.  In  fact,  the  care  of  Clemen- 
tina soon  became  at  once  a  rivalry  and  a  bond  between 
them,  and  Clementina,  so  far  from  being  neglected, 
found  herself  the  victim  of  emulous  and  sometimes 
embarrassing  ministrations.  As  she  herself  phrased  it 
in  a  moment  of  bitter  irony,  they  were  making  love 
over  her  live  body. 

They  left  Vienne,  Tommy  having  made  sufficient 
studies  for  immortal  studio  paintings,  and  took  up  their 
quarters  at  Valence.  There  is  a  spaciousness  about 


150     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

Valence  rare  in  provincial  towns  of  France.  You 
stand  in  the  middle  of  wide  boulevards,  the  long  vista 
closed  at  one  end  by  the  far  blue  tops  of  the  moun- 
tains of  the  Vivarais,  and  at  the  other  by  the  distant 
Alps,  and  you  think  you  are  dwelling  in  some  sweet 
city  in  the  air.  In  the  clear  sunshine  it  is  as  bright 
and  as  crisp  as  a  cameo. 

"  I  love  Vienne,  but  I  adore  Valence,"  said  Etta 
Concannon.  "  Here  I  can  breathe." 

They  were  sitting  on  the  terrace  of  a  cafe  in  the 
Place  de  la  Republique  in  front  of  the  great  monu- 
ment to  Emile  Augier.  It  was  the  cool  of  the  even- 
ing, and  a  fresh  breeze  came  from  the  mountains. 

"  I,  too,  am  glad  to  get  out  of  Vienne,"  said  Clem- 
entina. 

Tommy  protested.  "  That's  treason,  Clementina. 
We  had  such  ripping  times  there.  Do  you  remember 
the  evening  I  fetched  you  out  to  see  the  Temple  of 
Augustus  and  Livia  ?  " 

Clementina  gave  one  of  her  non-committal  grunts. 
She  did  indeed  remember  it.  But  for  that  night  the1 
three  of  them  would  not  have  been  sitting  together 
over  coffee  at  Valence. 

"  Tommy's  so  sentimental,"  Etta  remarked. 

"  Since  when  have  you  been  calling  him  '  Tom- 
my '  ?  "  asked  Clementina. 

"  We  fixed  that  up  this  afternoon,"  he  said  cheer- 
fully. "  '  Mr.  Burgrave  '  suggests  an  afternoon  party 
where  one  carts  tea  and  food  about — not  a  chummy 
motor  tour." 

"  We  agreed  to  adopt  each  other  as  cousins,"  said 
Etta. 

"  We  were  kind  of  lonely,  you  know,"  laughed 
Tommy.  "  We  happen  to  have  no  cousins  of  our  own, 
and,  besides,  you  deserted  us  to-day,  and  we  felt  like 
two  abandoned  babes  in  the  car." 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     151 

"  I  don't  think  you  were  much  to  be  pitied,"  said 
Clementina. 

In  pursuance  of  her  scheme  of  self-annihilation  she 
had  several  times  sent  them  out  on  jaunts  together, 
while  she  herself  went  for  a  grim  walk  in  the  dust  and 
heat.  This  afternoon  Etta  had  returned  radiant.  She 
had  had  the  time  of  her  life,  and  Tommy  was  the  dear- 
est thing  that  ever  happened.  Etta  was  addicted  to 
the  hyperbole  of  her  generation.  At  dinner  Tommy 
had  admitted  the  general  amenity  of  their  excursion 
to  Valence  Crest — and  now  came  the  avowal  of  the 
establishment  of  their  cousinly  and  intimate  relations. 
The  scheme  was  succeeding  admirably.  How  could  it 
fail  ?  Throw  together  two  bright,  impressionable  and 
innocent  young  humans  of  opposite  sexes,  and  of  the 
same  social  position,  link  them  by  a  common  tie,  let 
them  spend  hours  in  each  other's  company,  withdraw 
the  ordinary  restrictions  that  limit  the  intercourse  of 
such  beings  in  everyday  society,  bathe  them  in  sun- 
shine and  drench  their  souls  with  beauty,  and  you 
have  the  Garden  of  Eden  over  again,  the  Serpent  be- 
ing replaced  by  his  chubby  and  winged  successor.  The 
result  is  almost  inevitable.  But  you  can  withdraw  with 
certainty  the  qualifying  adverb,  when  one  of  the  po- 
tentially high  contracting  parties  has  been  suffering 
from  heart-scratch,  and  has  announced  her  intention 
of  becoming  a  hospital  nurse. 

I  am  quite  aware  that  in  the  eyes  of  the  world 
Clementina's  conduct  was  outrageous.  Etta  was  the 
only  child  of  a  wealthy  admiral ;  Tommy,  a  penniless 
painter.  Admiral  Concannon  had  confidently  en- 
trusted his  daughter  to  her  care  and  had  not  the  least 
idea  of  what  was  going  on.  When  the  disastrous  story 
should  reach  his  ears,  he  would  foam  righteously  at 
the  mouth,  and  use,  with  perfect  justification,  the  most 
esoteric  of  quarter-deck  language.  I  do  not  attempt 


.152     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

to  defend  Clementina.  All  the  same,  you  must  re- 
member that  in  Tommy  Burgrave  she  was  giving  to 
Etta  as  a  free  gift  her  most  priceless  possession. 
Tommy  in  her  eyes  was  the  real  Prince  Charming — 
at  present,  as  often  happens  in  fairy  tales,  under  a 
cloud,  but  destined  in  real  life,  as  in  the  fairy  tales,  to 
come,  by  a  speedy  wave  of  the  magic  wand,  into  his 
principality.  As  to  the  waving  of  the  magic  wand, 
she  had  her  own  ideas.  She  was  quite  prepared  to 
weather  the  admiral's  storm. 

"  There  was  never  anything  so  sudden  but  the  fight 
of  two  rams,"  is  Rosalind's  startling  description  of  the 
courtship  between  Oliver  and  Celia.  These  lovers, 
however,  were  Elizabethans  who  did  things  in  a  large, 
splendid  and  unhesitating  way.  The  case  with  Tommy 
and  Etta,  who  were  moderns,  governed  by  all  kinds  of 
subtleties  and  delicacies,  three  centuries'  growth,  was 
not  quite  so  instantaneous.  The  ordinary  modern 
youth  and  maiden,  of  such  clean  upbringing,  walk 
along  together,  hand  in  hand  in  perfect  innocence,  for 
a  long  time,  never  realising  that  they  are  in  love  with 
one  another  till  something  happens.  The  maiden  may 
be  sent  into  the  country  by  an  infuriated  mother. 
Hence  revelation  with  anguish.  The  indiscreet  jest- 
ing of  a  friend,  a  tragedy  causing  both  to  come  hard 
against  the  bed-rock  facts  of  life,  may  shatter  the 
guileless  shell  of  their  love.  I  know  of  two  young 
things  who  came  by  the  knowledge  through  bumping 
their  heads  together  beneath  a  table  while  searching- 
for  a  fallen  penny.  A  shock,  a  jar  is  afl  that  is  needed. 
But  with  Tommy  and  Etta  nothing  yet  had  happened. 
They  walked  along  together  sweetly  imagining  them- 
selves to  be  fancy-free.  If  the  truth  were  known  it 
would  be  found  that  the  main  subject  of  their  conver- 
sation was  Clementina. 

When  the  time  came  for  them  to  leave  the  cafe. 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     1531 

Tommy  helped  both  ladies  to  put  on  their  jackets. 
The  human  warmth  of  the  crowded  terrace  sheltered 
from  the  mountain  breeze  by  the  awnings  had  ren- 
dered wraps  unnecessary.  But  outside  they  discovered 
the  air  to  be  chill.  Clementina  first  was  invested — 
with  the  slightest  hint  of  hurry.  She  turned  and  saw 
Tommy  snatch  Etta's  jacket  from  a  far  too  ready 
waiter's  hand.  In  his  investiture  of  Etta  there  was 
the  slightest  hint  of  lingering.  In  the  nice  adjust- 
ment of  the  collar  their  fingers  touched.  The  girl 
raised  laughing  eyes  which  he  met  tenderly.  A  knife 
was  thrust  through  Clementina's  heart,  and  she  closed 
her  thin  lips  tightly  to  dissimulate  the  pain. 

Etta  came  into  her  room  that  night  under  the  vague 
pretence  of  playing  maid  and  helping  her  to  undress. 
Her  aid  chiefly  consisted  in  sitting  on  the  bed  and 
chattering  out  of  a  birdlike  happiness. 

"  It's  all  just  heaven,"  she  declared.  "  I  wish  I 
could  show  you  how  grateful  I  am.  I've  had  nothing 
like  it  all  my  life.  When  I  get  home  I  won't  rest  till 
I've  teased  father  into  getting  a  car — he's  so  old-fash- 
ioned, you  know,  and  thinks  his  fat  old  horses  and  the 
family  omnibus  make  up  the  only  equipage  for  a  gen- 
tleman. But  I'll  worry  him  into  a  car,  and  then  we'll 
go  all  over  Europe.  But  it  won't  be  quite  the  same 
without — without  you,  Clementina,  dear." 

Clementina  wriggled  into  an  old  flannel  dressing 
jacket  and  began  to  roll  a  cigarette. 

"  I  thought  you  were  going  to  be  a  hospital  nurse." 

"  So  did  I,"  said  the  girl,  a  shadow  flitting  swiftly 
over  her  face.  "  But  I  don't  seem  to  want  to  now. 
I  should  hate  it." 

"  What  has  made  you  change  your  mind  ?  "  asked 
Clementina,  after  the  first  puff  of  smoke. 

Etta,  on  the  bed,  nursed  her  knee.  Her  fair  hair  fell 
in  a  mass  about  her  shoulders.  She  looked  the  picture 


154     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

of  innocence — a  female  child  Samuel  out  of  an  illus- 
trated Family  Bible. 

"  The  sight  of  you,  darling,  at  Lyons  Station." 

"  Little  liar!  "  murmured  Clementina. 

But  she  forebore  to  question  the  girl  further.  She 
had  no  intention  of  supplying  the  necessary  shock 
above  mentioned.  The  observance  of  the  gradual 
absorption  of  these  two  young  souls  one  in  the  other 
was  far  too  delicious  an  agony  to  be  wantonly  broken. 
Besides,  it  hardened  her  nature  (so  she  fondly  im- 
agined) dried  up  the  newly  found  well-head  of  pas- 
sion, reduced  the  soft  full  woman  back  to  the  stony- 
hearted, \vooden-faced,  bitter-tongued,  cynical,  por- 
trait-painting automaton,  the  enviable,  self-mutilated 
Clementina  of  a  few  months  ago.  When  a  woman 
wants  to  punish  herself  she  does  so  conscientiously. 
The  offending  Eve  should  be  thoroughly  whipped  out 
of  her. 

The  car  of  thirty-five  million  dove-power  sped 
through  the  highways  of  sunny  France — through  en- 
chanted forest  glades,  over  mountains  of  the  moon, 
through  cities  of  wonderland,  so,  at  least,  it  seemed 
to  two  young  souls.  For  Clementina,  alas !  the  glamour 
of  sky  and  sunshine  and  greenery  had  departed.  For 
Johnson,  happy  possessor  of  a  carburation  in  lieu  of 
a  temperament,  it  had  never  existed.  From  Valence 
they  struck  north-west,  through  St.  Etienne,  Roanne, 
Nevers,  Bourges.  It  was  at  Bourges  that  she  came 
upon  the  two  young  people  unawares. 

She  had  entered,  not  knowing  where  they  were,  for 
they  had  gone  off  together,  the  cloistered  courtyard  of 
the  Hotel  de  Jacques  Cceur.  Now  the  cloister  forms 
an  arcaded  gallery  a  few  feet  above  the  ground,  which 
is  reached  by  a  flight  of  steps.  She  heard  voices,  ap- 
proached hidden  from  them,  beheld  the  pair  sitting  on 
the  bottom  step,  in  the  cool  shadow. 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     155 

"  I  should  never  get  the  whole  adorableness  of  this," 
said  Tommy,  "  if  I  hadn't  you  beside  me.  You  and  I 
seem  to  be  like  the  two  barrels  of  a  field-glass — ad- 
justed to  one  focus." 

Clementina,  hugging  the  wall,  tip-toed  out  of  the 
cloister.  There  was  only  one  alternative,  a  whirlwind, 
a  hurricane  of  a  temptation  which  she  was  strong 
enough  to  resist:  to  descend  then  and  there  and  box 
his  ears  soundly. 


CHAPTER  XII 

WHILE  Clementina,  in  her  own  fashion,  was 
shattering  an  idyll  to  pieces,  Quixtus,  under 
the  tutelage  of  Billiter,  pursued  the  most 
distasteful  occupation  in  which  he  had  ever  engaged. 
Had  some  Rhadamanthine  Arbiter  of  his  Destiny  com- 
pelled him,  under  penalty  of  death,  to  choose  between 
horse-racing  and  laborious  practice  as  a  solicitor,  he 
would  unhesitatingly  have  chosen  the  latter.  Course 
and  stand  and  paddock  and  ring,  the  whole  machinery 
of  the  sport,  wearied  him  to  exasperation.  Just  as 
there  are  some  men  to  whom,  as  the  saying  goes,  music 
is  the  most  expensive  form  of  noise,  so  are  there 
others  to  whom  the  racing  of  horses  is  merely  the  most 
extravagantly  cumbersome  form  of  gambling.  Why 
train  valuable  animals,  they  ask,  to  run  round  a  field, 
when  the  same  end  could  be  attained  by  making  little 
leaden  horses  gyrate  mechanically  round  a  disk,  at  a 
millionth  part  of  the  cost?  Of  the  delight  of  study- 
ing pedigree,  of  following  form,  of  catching  the  pre- 
cious trickles  of  information  that  percolate  through 
the  litter  of  stables,  of  backing  their  judgment  thus 
misguided  they  have  no  notion.  They  cannot  even 
feel  a  thrill  of  excitement  at  the  sight  of  the  far-off 
specks  of  galloping  horses.  They  wonder  at  the  fu- 
tility of  it  all  as  the  quadrupeds  scrabble  down  the 
straight.  An  automobile,  they  plead,  can  go  ten  times 
as  fast.  That  such  purblind  folk  exist  is  sad ;  but  after 
all  they  are  God's  creatures,  just  the  same  as  jockeys 
and  professional  tipsters. 

156 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     157 

At  first  there  was  one  feature  of  the  race-course 
which  fascinated  Quixtus — the  ring.  Then  he  imag- 
ined he  had  come  into  contact  with  incarnate  evil. 
Those  coarse  animal  faces,  swollen  with  the  effort  of 
bawling  the  odds,  those  hard  greedy  eyes  bulging  from 
purple  cheeks,  those  voices  raucous,  inhuman,  sug- 
gested to  his  mild  fancy  a  peculiarly  depraved  corner 
of  Tophet.  But  what  practical  evil  resulted  from  this 
Masque  of  Hades  was  not  quite  apparent.  Nobody 
seemed  any  the  worse.  The  bookmaker  smiled  widely 
on  those  who  won,  and  those  who  lost  smiled  on  the 
world  with  undaunted  cheerfulness.  So,  in  the  course 
of  time,  Quixtus  began  to  regard  the  bookmakers  with 
feelings  of  disappointment,  which  gave  place  after  a 
while  to  indifference,  and  eventually  to  weariness  and 
irritation. 

Even  Old  Joe  Jenks,  thick-necked,  fishy-eyed  vil- 
lain, to  whom  Billiter  personally  introduced  him, 
proved  himself,  in  all  his  dealings,  to  be  a  scrupulously 
honest  man.  The  turf,  in  spite  of  its  depressing  ugli- 
ness, appeared  but  a  manoeuvring  ground  for  the  dull 
virtues.  Where  was  its  wickedness?  He  complained 
at  length  to  Billiter. 

Billiter  seemed  for  the  moment  to  be  in  a  bad  hu- 
mour. He  tugged  at  his  heavy  moustache. 

"  I  don't  see  what  fault  you  can  find  with  racing. 
You're  making  a  very  good  thing  out  of  it." 

Which  was  true.  Fortune,  who  had  played  him  such 
scurvy  tricks,  was  now  turning  on  him  her  sunniest 
smile.  He  was  winning  prodigiously,  fantastically. 
Billiter  selected  the  horses  which  he  was  to  back,  he 
backed  them  to  the  amount  advised  by  Billiter,  and 
in  most  instances  the  horses  won. 

"If  you  think  the  mere  gaining  of  money  gives  me 
any  pleasure,  my  dear  Billiter,"  said  he,  "  you're  very 
much  mistaken.  I  have  sufficient  means  of  my  own  to 


158     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

satisfy  my  modest  requirements,  and  to  accept  large 
sums  of  money  from  your  friend,  Mr.  Jenks,  is  hu- 
miliating and  repulsive." 

"If  that's  the  matter,  you  can  turn  them  over  to 
me,"  said  Billiter.  "  I  don't  get  much  out  of  the  busi- 
ness." 

They  were  walking  about  the  paddock,  between  the 
races.  Quixtus  halted  and  regarded  his  morose  com- 
panion with  cold  enquiry. 

"  You  gave  me  to  understand  that  you  were  betting 
on  the  same  horses  as  I  was." 

Billiter  cursed  himself  for  an  incautious  fool. 

"  Only  now  and  then,"  said  he,  "  and  for  small 
stakes.  How  can  I  afford  to  plunge  like  you  ?  " 

"  What  is  the  dismal  quadruped  I  am  betting  on  for 
this  next  race  ?  "  asked  Quixtus,  looking  at  his  card. 

"  Punchinello.    Forty- five  to  one.    Dead  cert." 

"  Then,"  said  Quixtus,  "  here  are  five  pounds.  Put 
them  on  Punchinello  and  if  he  wins  you  will  have  two 
hundred  and  twenty-five." 

Billiter  left  him,  made  his  way  out  of  the  paddock 
to  that  part  of  the  race-course  where  the  outside  book- 
makers have  their  habitation.  Old  Joe  Jenks,  in  the 
flaming  check  suit  and  a  white  hat  adorned  with  his 
name  and  quality,  stood  on  a  stool  shouting  the  odds, 
taking  bets  and  giving  directions  to  the  clerk  at  his 
side.  Business  for  a  moment  was  slack. 

"  Another  fiver  for  the  governor  on  Punchinello," 
said  Billiter. 

Old  Joe  Jenks  jumped  from  his  stool  and  took  Bil- 
liter aside. 

"  Look  here,  old  friend,"  said  he,  "  chuck  it.  Come 
off  it.  I'm  not  playing  any  more.  I  poured  a  couple 
of  quarts  of  champagne  over  your  head  because  you 
told  me  you  had  got  hold  of  a  mug,  and  instead  of  the 
mug  you  bring  up  a  ruddy  miracle  who  backs  every 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     159 

wrong  'un  at  a  hundred  to  one — and  romps  in.  And 
thinking  you  straight,  Mr.  Billiter,  sir,  I've  stretched 
out  the  odds — to  oblige  you.  And  you've  damn  well 
landed  me.  It's  getting  monotonous.  See?  I'm 
tired." 

"  It's  not  my  fault,  Joe,"  said  Billiter  humbly. 
"  Look.  Just  an  extra  fiver  on  Punchinello.  He's  got 
no  earthly — you  know  that  as  well  as  I  do." 

"  Do  I  ?  "  growled  the  bookmaker  angrily,  convinced 
that  Billiter  was  over-reaching  him.  "  How  do  I  know 
what  you  know  ?  You  want  to  have  it  both  ways,  do 
you?  Well,  you  won't  get  it  out  of  me." 

"  I  swear  to  God,  Joe,"  said  Billiter  earnestly,  "  that 
I'm  straight.  So  little  did  I  expect  him  to  win  that 
I've  not  asked  a  penny  commission." 

"  Then  ask  it  now,  and  be  hanged  to  you,"  cried  the 
angry  bookmaker,  and  leaping  back  to  his  stool,  he  re- 
sumed his  brazen-throated  trade. 

Billiter  kept  his  five-pound  note,  unwilling  to  risk  it 
with  another  bookmaker  on  the  laughing-stock  of  a 
Punchinello,  and  sauntered  away  moodily.  He  was  a 
most  injured  man.  Old  Joe  Jenks  doubted  his  good 
faith.  Now,  was  there  a  single  horse  selected  for  his 
patron  to  back  upon  which  any  student  of  racing  out- 
side a  lunatic  asylum  would  have  staked  money?  Not 
one.  He  could  lay  his  hand  on  his  honest  heart  and 
swear  it.  And  had  he  staked  a  penny  on  his  selec- 
tions ?  No.  He  could  swear  to  that,  too.  He  had  not 
(fool  that  he  was)  asked  Quixtus  for  a  commission. 
Through  his  honourable  dealing  he  was  a  poor  man. 
The  thought  was  bitter.  He  had  run  straight  with 
Jenks.  It  was  not  his  fault  if  the  devil  had  got  into 
the  horses  so  that  every  shocking  outsider  backed  by 
Quixtus  revealed  ultra-equine  capacities.  What  could 
a  horse  do  against  the  superhorse?  Nothing.  What 
could  Billiter  himself  do?  Nothing.  Except  have  a. 


160     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

drink.  In  the  circumstances  it  was  the  only  thing  to 
do.  He  went  into  the  bar  of  the  grand  stand  and  or- 
dered a  whisky  and  soda.  It  sizzled  gratefully  down 
a  throat  burning  with  a  sense  of  wrong.  His  moral 
tone  restored,  he  determined  to  live  in  poverty  no 
more  for  the  sake  of  a  quixotic  principle,  and,  pro- 
ceeding to  a  ready-money  bookmaker  of  his  acquaint- 
ance, pulled  out  his  five-pound  note,  and  backed  Rose- 
mary, a  certain  winner  (such  was  his  private  and  in- 
fallible information)  at  eight  to  one.  This  duty  to 
himself  accomplished,  he  went  to  the  grand  stand  to 
view  the  race,  leaving  Quixtus  to  do  that  which 
seemed  best  to  him. 

The  bell  rang,  the  course  was  cleared,  the  numbers 
put  up;  the  horses  cantered  gaily  past.  At  the  sight 
of  Rosemary,  a  shiny  bay  in  beautiful  condition,  Bil- 
liter's  heart  warmed;  at  the  sight  of  Punchinello,  a 
scraggy  crock  who  had  never  won  a  race  in  his  in- 
glorious life,  Billiter  sniffed  scornfully.  If  Old  Joe 
Jenks  was  such  a  fool  as  to  refuse  a  free  gift  of  two 
pounds  ten — they  had  agreed  to  halve  the  spoils — the 
folly  thereof  lay  entirely  on  Old  Joe  Jenks's  head. 

The  start  was  made.  For  a  long  time  the  horses 
ran  in  a  bunch.  Then  Rosemary  crept  ahead.  Bil- 
liter's  moustache  beneath  the  levelled  field-glasses  be- 
trayed a  happy  smile.  Rosemary  increased  her  lead. 
At  the  turn  into  the  straight,  something  happened. 
She  swerved  and  lost  her  stride.  Three  others  dashed 
by,  among  them  the  despised  Punchinello.  They 
passed  the  post  in  a  flash,  Punchinello  first.  Billiter 
murmured  things  at  which  the  world,  had  it  heard 
them,  would  have  grown  pale,  and  again  sought  the 
bar.  Emerging  thence  he  went  in  quest  of  his  patron. 
He  had  not  far  to  go.  Quixtus  sat  on  a  wooden  chair 
at  the  back  of  the  grand  stand  reading  a  vellum  cov- 
ered Elzevir  duodecimo  edition  of  Saint  Augustine's 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     161 

Confessions.     When  Billiter  approached  he  rose  and 
thrust  the  volume  into  the  tail  pocket  of  his  frock-coat. 

"  Was  that  a  race?  "  he  asked. 

"  Race.  Of  course  it  was.  The  race.  Didn't  you 
see  it  ?  " 

'  Thank  goodness,  no,"  said  Quixtus.  "  Did  any 
horse  win?  " 

The  sodden  and  simple  wit  of  Billiter  rose  like  a 
salmon  at  this  gaudy  fly  of  irony.  He  lost  his  temper. 

"  Your  damned,  spavined,  bow-legged,  mule-begot- 
ten crock  of  a  Punchinello  won." 

Quixtus  regarded  him  mildly ;  but  a  transient  gleam 
of  light  flickered  in  his  china-blue  eyes. 

"  Then,  my  dear  Billiter,"  said  he,  "  I  have  won 
nine  hundred  pounds,  which,  in  view  of  my  opinion 
of  the  turf,  based  on  experience,  I  think  I  shall  hand 
over  to  the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel 
to  be  earmarked  for  the  conversion  of  the  Mahom- 
medans  in  Mecca.  As  for  you,  Billiter,  you  have  won 
two  hundred  and  twenty-five  pounds  " — Billiter  quiv- 
ered with  sub-aspirate  anathema — •"  which  ought  to 
satisfy  the  momentary  cupidity  of  any  man.  Let  us 
go.  The  more  I  see  of  it  the  more  am  I  convinced 
that  the  race-course  is  no  place  for  me.  It  is  too 
good." 

Billiter  glanced  at  him  with  wrathful  suspicion.  Was 
he  speaking  in  childish  simplicity  or  in  mordant  sar- 
casm? The  grave,  unsmiling  face,  the  expressionless 
blue  eyes  gave  him  no  clue. 

Thus,  however,  ended  Quixtus's  career  on  the  Turf. 
To  stand  about  wearily  in  all  weathers  in  order  to 
witness  what,  to  his  fastidious  mind  was  merely  a  dull 
and  vulgar  spectacle,  was  an  act  of  self-sacrifice  from 
which  he  derived  no  compensating  thrill.  The  injured 
Billiter  having  patched  up  a  peace  with  Old  Joe  Jenks, 
convincing  him  of  his  own  ingenuousness  and  of  the 


1 62     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

inevitable  change  in  his  patron's  luck,  in  vain  per- 
suaded Quixtus  to  resume  his  investigations.  He  of- 
fered to  introduce  him  to  a  fraternity  of  so-called 
commission  agents  and  touts,  in  whose  company  he 
could  saturate  himself  with  vileness. 

"  I  have  no  taste  for  disgusting  society,"  said 
Quixtus. 

"  Then  I  don't  know  what  the  deuce  you  do  want," 
exclaimed  Billiter  in  a  fume. 

"  You  can't  touch  pitch  without  being  defiled." 

"  I  thought  that  was  just  what  you  were  trying  to 
be." 

"  In  one  way,  yes,"  replied  Quixtus,  musingly ;  "  but 
I  loathe  touching  the  pitch." 

In  spite  of  his  confessed  belief  in  the  altruistic 
purity  of  the  turf,  he  regarded  as  unspeakable  defile- 
ment the  cheques  which  he  had  received  from  Old  Joe 
Jenks.  He  had  kept  them  in  his  drawer,  and  the  more 
he  looked  at  them  the  more  did  the  bestial  face  of  Old 
Joe  Jenks  obtrude  itself  before  his  eyes,  and  the  more 
repugnant  did  it  become  to  his  now  abnormal  fas- 
tidiousness to  pay  them  into  his  own  banking  account. 
To  destroy  them,  as  was  his  first  impulse,  merely 
signified  a  benefit  conferred  on  the  odious  Jenks,  who 
would  be  only  too  glad  to  repocket  his  filthy  money. 
What  should  he  do?  At  last  a  malignant  idea  oc- 
curred to  his  morbidly  and  curiously  working  mind. 
He  would  cast  all  this  pitch  and  defilement  upon  an- 
other's head.  Some  one  else  should  shiver  with  the 
disgust  of  it.  But  who?  The  inspiration  came  from  Tar- 
tarus. He  endorsed  the  cheques  to  the  value  of  nearly 
two  thousand  pounds,  and  paid  them  into  the  banking1 
account  of  his  nephew,  Tommy  Burgrave. 

He  would  be  as  diabolically  and  defiledly  wicked  as 
you  please,  but  the  intermediary  pitch  he  would  not 
touch. 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     163 

That  was  his  attitude  towards  all  the  suggestions 
for  wickedness  laid  before  him  by  his  three  counsel- 
lors. They,  for  their  part,  although  they  recognised 
great  advantage  in  fostering  the  gloomy  humour  of 
their  mad  patron,  began  to  be  weary  in  evil-doing. 
After  they  had  taxed  their  invention  for  an  attractive 
scheme  of  villainy,  they  found  that  it  either  came 
within  the  tabooed  category  of  crime  or,  by  its  lack  of 
refinement,  failed  to  commend  itself  to  the  sensitive 
scholar.  They  were  at  their  wits'  end.  The  only  one 
to  whose  proposal  Quixtus  turned  an  attentive  ear  was 
Huckaby,  who  had  suggested  the  heart-breaking  ex- 
pedition through  the  fashionable  resorts  of  Europe. 
And,  to  the  credit  of  Huckaby,  be  it  here  mentioned 
that,  beyond  certain  fantastical  and  mocking  sugges- 
tions, such  as  the  devastation  of  old  women's  wards 
in  workhouses  by  means  of  an  anonymous  Christmas 
gift  of  nitroglycerine  plum-puddings,  this  was  the  only 
serious  proposal  he  submitted.  Anxious,  however,  lest 
the  idea  should  lose  its  attraction,  he  urged  Quixtus  to 
start  immediately.  It  is  not  every  day  that  a  down- 
at-heel  wastrel  has  the  opportunity  of  luxurious  foreign 
travel,  to  say  nothing  of  the  humorous  object  of  this 
particular  excursion.  But  Quixtus,  very  sensibly, 
pointed  out  to  his  eager  follower  that  the  fashionable 
resorts  of  Europe,  save  the  great  capitals,  are  empty 
during  the  months  of  May  and  June,  and  that  it  would 
be  much  better  to  postpone  their  journey  until  August 
filled  them  with  the  thousand  women  waiting  to  have 
their  hearts  broken. 

Vandermeer,  unemployed  since  his  embassy  to  Tom- 
my Burgrave,  unsuccessful  in  his  suggestions  and  en- 
vious of  Billiter  and  Huckaby,  at  last  hit  upon  an  in- 
genious idea.  He  brought  Quixtus  a  dirty  letter.  It 
ran: 


1 64     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 


"  DEAR  MR.  VANDERMEER  :  You,  who  were  an  old 
friend  of  my  husband's  in  our  better  days  and  know 
how  valiantly  I  have  struggled  to  keep  the  home  to- 
gether, can't  you  help  me  now?  I  am  ill  in  bed,  my 
children  are  starving.  The  little  ones  are  lying  now 
even  too  weak  to  cry  out  for  bread.  It  would  break  a 
wolf's  heart  to  see  them.  If  you  can't  help  me,  for 
I  know  how  things  are  with  you,  can't  you  bring  my 
case  before  your  rich  friend,  Mr.  Quixtus,  of  whose 
kindness  and  generosity  you  have  so  often  spoken?  .  .  . 
"  Yours  sincerely, 

"  EMILY  WELLGOOD/' 

It  bore  the  address  "  2  Transiter  Street,  Clerkenwell 
Read,  N.W." 

"  What  do  you  bring  me  this  for?  "  asked  Quixtus 
as  soon  as  he  had  read  it. 

"  I  am  satisfying  my  own  conscience  as  far  as  Mrs. 
Wellgood  is  concerned,"  replied  Vandermeer,  "  and 
at  the  same  time  giving  you  an  opportunity  of  being 
wicked.  It's  a  genuine  case.  You  can  let  them  die  of 
starvation." 

Quixtus  leaned  back  in  his  chair  and  gave  the  mat- 
ter his  consideration.  Vandermeer  had  interrupted  him 
in  the  midst  of  a  paper  which  he  was  writing  to  con- 
trovert a  new  theory  as  to  the  juxtaposition  of  the 
palaeolithic  and  neolithic  tombs  at  Solutre,  and  he  re- 
quired time  to  fetch  back  his  mind  from  the  quaternary 
age  to  the  present  day.  The  prospect  of  a  whole  fam- 
ily perishing  of  hunger  by  an  act,  as  it  were,  of  his 
will,  pleased  his  fancy. 

"  Very  good.  Very  good,  Vandermeer.  Let  them 
starve,"  said  he.  "  Let  them  starve,"  he  murmured 
to  himself  as  he  took  up  his  pen. 

Vandermeer,  hanging  about,  hinted  at  payment  for 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     165 

the  service  rendered.  Quixtus  met  his  crafty  eyes  with 
equal  cunning. 

"  You  would  be  too  soft  hearted — you  would  give 
them  some  of  the  money.  Wait  till  some  of  them  are 
dead."  He  rolled  the  last  words  delectably  round  his 
tongue.  "  And  now,  my  dear  Vandermeer,  I'm  very 
busy.  Many  thanks  and  good-bye." 

Vandermeer  left  reluctantly  and  Quixtus  resumed 
his  work. 

"  The  bizygomatic  transverse  diameter,"  he  wrote, 
putting  down  the  beginning  of  the  sentence  that  was 
in  his  head  when  Vandermeer  was  announced.  He 
paused.  He  had  lost  the  thread  of  his  ideas.  It  was 
a  subtle  argument  depending  on  the  comparative  meas- 
urements of  newly  discovered  skulls.  He  threw  down 
his  pen  impatiently,  and  in  mild  and  gentlemanly  lan- 
guage anathematised  Vandermeer.  He  attacked  the 
bizygomatic  transverse  diameter  again;  but  the  starv- 
ing family  occupied  his  thoughts.  Presently  he  aban- 
doned work  for  the  morning  and  gave  himself  up  to 
the  relish  of  his  wickedness.  It  had  a  delicious  flavour. 
Practically  he  was  slaying  mother  and  babes,  while  he 
stood  outside  the  ordinary  repulsive  and  sordid  cir- 
cumstances of  murder.  Vandermeer  should  have  his 
reward.  After  lunch,  he  felt  impelled  to  visit  them. 
A  force  stronger  than  a  strong  inclination  to  return 
to  his  paper  led  him  out  of  the  front  door  and  into  a 
taxi-cab  summoned  from  the  neighbouring  rank.  He 
promised  himself  the  thrill  of  gloating  over  the  suf- 
ferings of  his  victims.  Besides,  the  letter  contained  a 
challenge.  "  It  would  break  a  wolf's  heart  to  see 
them."  He  would  show  the  writer  that  his  heart  was 
harder  than  any  wolf's.  Instinctively  his  hand  sought 
the  waistcoat  pocket  in  which  he  kept  his  loose  gold. 
Yes;  there  were  three  sovereigns.  He  smiled.  It 
would  be  the  finished  craft  of  devildom  to  lay  them 


1 66     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

out  on  a  table  before  the  woman's  hungering  and  rav- 
ished eyes  and  then,  with  a  merciless  chuckle,  to  pocket 
them  again  and  walk  out  of  the  house. 

"  I  will  not  be  a  fool,"  he  asserted,  as  the  taxi-cab 
entered  the  Clerkenwell  Road. 

The  taxi-cab  driver  signed  that  he  wished  to  com- 
municate with  his  fare.  Quixtus  leaned  forward  over 
the  door. 

"  Do  you  know  where  Transiter  Street  is,  Sir?  " 

Quixtus  did  not.  Does  any  easy  London  gentleman 
know  the  mean  streets  in  the  purlieus  of  Clerkenwell? 
But,  oddly  enough,  a  milkman  of  the  locality  knew  not 
Transiter  Street,  either.  Nor  did  a  policeman  on  duty. 
Nor  did  a  postman.  Perplexed,  Quixtus  drove  to  the 
nearest  District  Post  Office  and  made  enquiries.  There 
was  no  such  street  in  Clerkenwell  at  all.  He  con- 
sulted the  Post  Office  London  Directory.  There  was 
no  such  street  as  Transiter  Street  in  London. 

Quixtus  drove  home  in  an  angry  mood.  Once  more 
he  had  been  deceived  Vandermeer  had  invented  the 
emaciated  family  for  the  sake  of  the  fee.  Did  the 
earth  hold  a  more  abandoned  villain?  He  grimly  set 
about  devising  some  punishment  for  his  disingenuous 
counsellor.  Nothing  adequate  occurred  to  him  till 
some  days  afterwards  when  Vandermeer  sent  him  an- 
other forged  letter  announcing  the  demise,  in  horrible 
torment,  of  the  youngest  child.  He  took  up  his  pen 
and  wrote  as  follows: 

"  MY  DEAR  VANDERMEER  :  I  am  sending  Mrs.  Well- 
good  the  burial  expenses.  I  have  also  enclosed  a 
cheque  for  yourself.  Will  you  kindly  go  to  Transiter 
Street  and  claim  it  ?  For  the  present  I  have  no  further 
need  of  you, 

"Yours  sincerely, 

"  EPHRAIM  QUIXTUS/' 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     167 

He  posted  the  letter  himself  on  his  way  to  lunch  at 
the  club,  where  Wonnacott  remarked  on  his  high' good 
humour. 

Since  the  discontinuance  of  the  Tuesday  dinners 
(for  they  were  not  resumed  after  the  establishment 
of  the  new  relations),  Huckaby,  Billiter,  and  Vander- 
meer  had  contracted  the  habit  of  meeting  once  a  week 
in  the  bar-parlour  of  a  quiet  tavern  for  a  companion- 
able fuddle.  There  they  exchanged  views  on  religion 
and  alcohol,  and  related  unveracious  (and  uncredited) 
anecdotes  of  their  former  high  estate.  Jealous  of  each 
other,  however,  they  spoke  little  of  Quixtus,  and  then 
only  in  general  terms.  The  poor  gentleman  was  still 
distraught.  It  was  a  sad  case,  causing  them  to  wag 
their  heads  sorrowfully  and  order  another  round  of 
whisky. 

But  one  evening  of  depression,  Quixtus  having  for 
some  time  refused  their  ministrations,  and  pockets 
having  become  woefully  empty,  they  talked  with 
greater  freedom  of  their  respective  dealings  with  their 
patron.  Vandermeer  related  the  practical  joke  he  had 
played  upon  him;  Billiter  described  his  astounding 
luck,  and  his  crazy  reason  for  retiring  from  the  turf; 
and  Huckaby,  by  way  of  illustrating  the  unbalanced 
state  of  Quixtus's  mind,  confided  to  them  the  project 
of  breaking  a  woman's  heart. 

"  What  are  you  going  to  get  out  of  it?  "  asked  Van- 
dermeer brutally,  for  the  first  time  breaking  through 
the  pretence  that  they  were  three  devoted  friends 
banded  together  to  protect  the  poor  mad  gentleman's 
interests. 

Huckaby  raised  a  protesting  hand.  "  My  dear 
Van!" 

"  Oh,  drop  it,"  cried  Vandermeer.   "  You  make  me 
tired."  He  repeated  the  question. 
',"  Simply  amusement.     What  else?"  said  Huckaby. 


i68     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

They  wrangled  foolishly  for  a  while.  At  last  Bil- 
liter, who  had  remained  silent,  brought  his  fist  down, 
with  a  bang,  on  the  table. 

"  I've  got  an  idea,"  said  he.  "  Have  you  any  par- 
ticular woman  in  view  ?  " 

"  Lord,  no,"  said  Huckaby. 

"  I  can  put  you  on  to  one,"  said  Billiter.  "  No  need 
to  go  abroad.  She's  here  in  London." 

Huckaby  called  him  uncomplimentary  names.  The 
Continental  trip,  as  far  as  he  was  concerned,  was  the 
essence  of  the  suggestion;  the  capture  of  the  wild 
goose  a  remote  consideration. 

"  Besides,  old  man,"  said  he,  "  this  is  my  show." 

Billiter  looked  glum.  After  all,  the  idea  was  of  no 
great  value.  Vandermeer's  cunning  brain  began  to 
work.  He  asked  Billiter  for  a  description  of  the  lady. 

"  She's  the  widow  of  an  old  pal  of  mine,"  replied 
Billiter.  "  Lady  and  all  that  sort  of  thing.  Her  hus- 
band, poor  old  chap,  came  to  grief — Dragoon  Guards 
— in  the  running  for  a  title — went  it  too  hot,  you  know 
— died  leaving  her  with  nothing  at  all.  She  has  pulled 
through,  somehow — lives  in  devilish  good  style, 
dresses  expensively,  and  has  the  cleverness  to  hang  on 
to  her  social  position.  Damned  nice  woman — but  as 
for  her  heart,  you  could  go  at  it  with  a  pickaxe  with- 
out risk  of  breaking  it.  I  thought  she  would  just  suit 
the  case." 

"  Where  does  the  money  come  from  to  live  in  good 
style  and  dress  expensively  ?  "  asked  Huckaby. 

"  Billiter  thinks  it  might  just  as  well  come  from 
Quixtus  as  from  any  one  else.  Don't  you,  Billiter  ?  " 

Billiter  nodded  sagaciously  and  gulped  down  some 
whisky  and  water. 

"  And  then  we'd  all  stand  in,"  cried  Vandermeer. 

"  That  may  be  all  very  well  in  its  way,"  said  Huck- 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     169 

al>y,  "  but  I'm  not  going  to  give  up  my  one  chance  of 
getting  abroad." 

"  Go  abroad  then,"  retorted  Vandermeer.  "  If  the 
lady  is  of  the  kind  I  take  her  to  be,  she  won't  mind 
crossing  the  Channel  when  she  knows  there's  a  golden 
feathered  coot  in  Boulogne  just  dying  to  moult  in  her 
hand." 

"  You  are  crude  and  vulgar  in  your  ideas,  Van," 
said  Huckaby.  "  Gentlemen  of  Quixtus's  position  no 
more  go  to  Boulogne  for  a  holiday  than  they  frequent 
Ramsgate  boarding-houses.  And  they  don't  give  large 
sums  of  money  to  expensively  dressed  ladies  with  con- 
jecturable  means  of  support." 

"  He's  such  a  fool  that  he  would  never  guess  any- 
thing," argued  Vandermeer. 

"  Hold  on,"  said  Billiter,  "  you're  on  the  wrong 
tack  altogether.  I  told  you  she  was  a  lady."  His 
manner  changed  subtly,  the  moribund  instinct  of  birth 
crackling  suddenly  into  a  tiny  flame.  "  I  don't  know 
if  you  two  quite  realise  what  that  means,  but  to  Quix- 
tus  it  would  mean  everything." 

"  I'm  a  sometime  Fellow  of  Corpus  Christi  College, 
Cambridge •"  began  Huckaby,  ruffled. 

"  Then  you  must  have  met  a  lady  connected  with 
somebody  in  your  damned  Academy,"  said  Billiter, 
who  had  been  sent  down  from  Oxford. 

"  The  University  of  Cambridge  isn't  an  Academy," 
said  Huckaby,  waxing  quarrelsome. 

"  And  a  woman  who  subsists  on  gifts  from  her  gen- 
tlemen friends  can't  be  a  real  lady,"  said  Vandermeer. 

"  Oh,  go  to  blazes,  both  of  you!  "  cried  Billiter  an- 
grily. 

He  clapped  on  his  hat  and  rose.  But  as  he  had  been 
sitting  in  the  corner  of  the  divan,  between  Huckaby 
and  Vandermeer,  with  the  table  in  front  of  him,  a  dig- 


170 

nified  exit  was  impracticable.  Indeed,  he  was  imme- 
diately plumped  down  again  on  his  seat  by  a  tug  on 
each  side  of  his  coat,  and  adjured  in  the  vernacular 
not  to  stray  from  the  paths  of  wisdom. 

"What's  the  use  of  quarrelling?"  asked  Huckaby. 
"  She's  a  lady  if  you  say  so." 

"Of  course,  old  man,"  Vandermeer  agreed  " Have 
a  drink?" 

Billiter  being  mollified,  and  the  refinement  of  the 
Dragoon  Guardsman's  widow  being  accepted  as  indis- 
putable, a  long  and  confidential  conference  took  place, 
the  conspirators  speaking  in  whispers,  with  heads  close 
together,  although  they  happened  to  be  alone  in  the 
saloon-bar.  It  was  the  first  time  they  had  contem- 
plated concerted  action,  the  first  time  they  had  dis- 
cussed anything  of  real  interest;  so,  for  the  first  time 
they  forgot  to  get  fuddled.  The  plot  was  simple.  Bil- 
liter was  to  approach  Mrs.  Fontaine  (at  last  he  dis- 
closed the  lady's  identity)  with  all  the  delicacy  such  a 
mission  demanded,  and  lay  the  proposal  before  her. 
If  she  fell  in  with  it  she  would  hold  herself  in  readiness 
to  repair  to  whatever  Continental  resort  might  be  indi- 
cated, and  then  having  made  herself  known  to  Huck- 
aby, would  be  introduced  by  him  to  Quixtus.  The  rest 
would  follow,  as  the  night  the  day. 

"  The  part  I  don't  like  about  it,"  objected  Vander- 
meer, "  is  not  only  letting  a  fourth  into  our  own  pri- 
vate concern,  but  giving  her  the  lion's  share.  We're 
not  a  syndicate  of  philanthropists." 

"  I'm  by  way  of  thinking  it  won't  be  our  concern 
much  longer,"  replied  Billiter. 

"  And  nobody  asked  you  to  come  in,"  said  Huckaby. 
"  You  can  stand  out  if  you  like." 

An  ugly  look  overspread  Vandermeer's  foxy  face. 

"  Oh,  can  I  ?  You  see  what  happens  if  you  try  that 
game  on." 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     171 

u  Besides,"  continued  Billiter,  disregarding  the 
snarl,  "  it  will  be  to  our  advantage.  Which  of  us  is 
going  to  touch  our  demented  friend  for  a  hundred 
pounds?  We  didn't  do  it  in  former  days;  much  less 
now.  But  I'll  back  Mrs.  Fontaine  to  get  at  least 
three  thousand  out  of  him.  Thirty  per  cent,  is  our 
commission,  without  which  we  don't  play,  and  that 
gives  us  three  hundred  each.  I  could  do  with  three 
hundred  myself  very  nicely." 

"  How  are  we  to  know  what  she  gets  ?  " 

"  That's  easily  managed,"  said  Huckaby,  pulling  his 
ragged  beard.  "  She'll  make  her  returns  to  Billiter 
and  I'll  undertake  to  get  the  figures  out  of  Quixtus." 

"But  where  do  I  come  in?"  asked  Vandermeer. 
"  How  shall  I  know  if  you  two  are  playing 
straight?" 

"  You'll  have  your  damned  head  punched  in  a  min- 
ute," said  Billiter,  looking  fierce.  "  To  hear  you  one 
w;ould  think  we  were  a  set  of  crooks." 

"If  we  aren't,  what  the  devil  are  we,  then? "  mut- 
tered Vandermeer  bitterly. 

But  Billiter  had  turned  his  broad  back  on  him  and 
did  not  catch  the  words,  whereby  possibly  he  escaped 
a  broken  head.  Billiter  was  sometimes  sensitive  on 
the  point  of  honour.  He  had  sunk  to  lower  depths  of 
meanness  and  petty  villainy  than  the  other  two  in 
whom  the  moral  sense  still  lingered.  He  would  ac- 
knowledge himself  to  be  a  "  wrong  'un  "  because  that 
vague  term  connoted  in  his  mind  merely  a  gentleman 
of  broken  fortune  who  was  put  to  shifts  (such  as  his 
disastrous  bargain  with  Old  Joe  Jenks  and  the  present 
conspiracy)  for  his  living;  but  a  crook  was  a  common 
thief  or  swindler,  a  member  of  the  criminal  classes,  of 
a  confraternity  to  which  he,  Billiter,  deemed  it  im- 
possible that  he  could  belong,  especially  during  a 
period  like  the  present,  when  he  found  himself,  after 


172     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 
r 

many  years  of  dingy  linen,  apparelled  in  the  gorgeous 
raiment  of  his  gentlemanly  days.  He  had  sunk  below 
the  line  of  self-realisation.  But  the  others  had  not 
jVandermeer,  who  hitherto  had  merely  snapped  like  a 
•jackal  at  passing  food  to  satisfy  his  hunger,  did  not 
'deceive  himself  as  to  what  he  had  become.  Cynical, 
he  felt  no  remorse.  On  the  other  hand,  Huckaby,  who 
went  to  bed  that  night  sober,  had  a  bad  attack  of  con- 
science during  the  small  hours  and  woke  up  next 
morning  with  a  headache.  Whereupon  he  upbraided 
,  himself  for  his  folly;  first,  in  confiding  to  his  com- 
panions the  project  of  his  whimsical  adventure;  sec- 
ondly, in  allowing  it  to  drift  into  such  a  despicable  en- 
tanglement ;  thirdly,  in  associating  himself  with  a  scar- 
let crustacean  of  Billiter's  claw-power;  and  fourthly, 
in  not  getting  drunk. 

Huckaby  was  nearer  Quixtus  than  the  others  in  edu- 
cation and  point  of  view.  Though  willing  to  accept 
any  alms  thrown  to  him  he  was  not  rapacious ;  he  had 
not  regarded  his  mad  and  wealthy  patron  entirely  as  a 
pigeon  to  be  plucked;  and  beneath  all  the  corruption  of 
his  nature  there  burnt  a  spark  of  affection  for  the 
kindly  man  who  had  befriended  him  and  whose  trust 
he  had  betrayed.  He  spent  most  of  the  ineffectual  day 
in  shaping  a  resolution  to  withdraw  from  the  discredit- 
able compact.  But  by  the  last  post  in  the  evening  he 
received  a  laconic  postcard  from  Billiter :  "  The  Foun- 
tain plays" 

The  sapped  will-power  gave  way  before  the  march 
of  practical  events.  With  a  shrug  he  accepted  the 
message  as  a  decree  of  destiny,  and  wandered  forth 
into  congenial  haunts,  where,  in  one  respect  at  least, 
he  did  not  repeat  the  folly  of  the  previous  evening. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

NOT  long  after  this  Quixtus  announced  to  Hude- 
aby  his  intention  of  going  to  Paris  to  attend 
a  small  Congress  of  the  Anthropological  So- 
cieties of  the  North- West  of  France,  to  which  he,  as 
president  of  the  Anthropological  Society  of  London, 
had  been  invited.  He  had  gradually,  in  spite  of  his 
preoccupation,  resumed  his  interest  in  his  favourite 
pursuit,  and,  though  he  knew  his  learned  friends  to  be 
villains  at  heart,  he  enjoyed  their  learned  and  even 
thejr  lighter  conversation.  Human  society  had  begun 
to  attract  him  again.  It  afforded  him  saturnine 
amusement  to  speculate  on  the  corruption  that  lay  hid- 
den beneath  the  fair  exterior  of  men  and  women.  He 
also  had  a  half -crazy  pleasure  in  wearing  the  mask 
himself.  When  he  smiled  in  his  grave  and  benevolent 
manner  on  the  woman  by  his  side  at  the  dinner-table, 
how  could  she  suspect  the  malignant  ferocity  of  his 
nature  ?  He  was  playing  a  part.  He  was  fooling  her 
to  the  top  of  her  bent.  She  went  away  with  the  im- 
pression that  she  had  been  talking  to  a  mild,  scholarly 
gentleman  of  philanthropic  tendencies.  She  possibly 
asked  the  monster  to  tea.  He  hugged  himself  with 
delight.  When  it  was  a  question,  however,  of  identi- 
fying remains  of  aurochs  and  mammoths  and  reindeer, 
or  establishing  the  date  of  a  flint  hatchet,  he  took  the 
matter  seriously  and  gave  it  his  profound  attention. 
A  palaeolithic  carving  of  a  cave  lion  on  mammoth 
ivory  recently  discovered  in  the  Seine-et-Oise  was  to 
be  exhibited  at  the  Congress  and  form  the  subject  of  a 

173 


174     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

paper.  As  soon  as  he  heard  this  he  accepted  the  in- 
vitation with  enthusiasm.  The  carving  was  supposed 
to  be  the  most  perfect  of  its  kind  yet  discovered,  and 
Quixtus  burned  to  behold  it. 

Huckaby,  whose  financial  affairs  were  in  the  saddest 
condition  and  who  had  called  with  the  vague  hope  of 
a  trifle  on  account  of  services  to  be  rendered,  pricked 
up  his  ears  at  the  announcement.  Even  though  the 
main  heart-breaking  quest  was  deferred  to  August, 
why  should  they  not  seek  a  minor  adventure  during 
Quixtus's  visit  to  Paris?  It  would  be  a  kind  of  trial 
trip.  At  the  suggestion  Quixtus  shook  his  head.  The 
Congress  would  occupy  all  his  time  and  attention. 

"  Quite  so,"  said  Huckaby.  "  While  you're  busy 
with  prehistoric  man,  I'll  be  hunting  down  modern 
woman.  By  the  time  I've  found  her,  you'll  have  fin- 
ished. Having  done  with  the  bones,  you  can  devote  a 
few  extra  days  to  the  flesh." 

Quixtus  winced.  "  That's  rather  an  unfortunate 
way  of  putting  it" 

"  To  the  spirit  then — the  Evil  Spirit,"  said  Huckaby 
unabashed.  "  That  is,  if  we  discover  a  subject.  We're 
bound  to  try  various  experiments  before  we  finally 
succeed." 

"  I'm  afraid  it  will  be  more  trouble  than  the  thing 
is  worth,"  said  Quixtus  musingly. 

Here  was  something  happening  which  Huckaby 
dreaded.  Quixtus  was  beginning  to  lose  interest  in  the 
adventure.  In  another  month  he  might  regard  it  with 
repugnance.  He  must  start  it  now  with  Mrs.  Fontaine 
in  Paris,  or  the  whole  conspiracy  must  collapse.  The 
thought  urged  Huckaby  to  fresh  efforts  of  persuasion. 

"  Revenge  is  sweet  and  worth  the  trouble,"  he  said 
at  last. 

"  Yes,"  replied  Quixtus  in  a  low  voice.  "  Revenge 
would  be  sweet." 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     175 

Huckaby  glanced  at  him  swiftly.  Beyond  the 
iniquity  of  Marrable,  he  was  ignorant  of  the  precise 
nature  of  the  injuries  which  Quixtus  had  sustained  at 
the  hands  of  fortune.  Was  it  possible  that  a  woman 
had  played  him  false?  But  what  had  this  fossil  of  a 
man  to  do  with  women? 

"  I,  too,"  said  he,  with  malicious  intent,  "  would 
like  to  pay  off  old  scores  against  a  faithless  sex.  You 
have  found  them  faithless,  haven't  you  ?  " 

Quixtus's  brow  darkened.  "  As  false  as  hell,"  said 
he. 

"  I  knew  a  woman  had  treated  you  shamefully," 
said  Huckaby,  after  a  pause  during  which  Quixtus 
had  fallen  into  a  dull  reverie.  i 

"  Infamously,"  replied  Quixtus,  below  his  breath. ! 
He  looked  away  into  the  distance,  madness  gathering 
in  his  eyes.    For  the  moment  he  seemed  to  forget  the 
other's  presence.    Huckaby  took  his  opportunity.     He 
said  in  a  whisper: 

"  She  betrayed  you  ?  " 

Quixtus  nodded.     Huckaby  watched  him  narrowly, 
an  absurd  suspicion  beginning  to  form  itself  in  his 
mind.    By  his  chance  phrase  about  revenge  he  had  put 
his  friend's  unsound  mind  on  the  track  of  a  haunting 
tragedy.    Who  was  the  woman?    His  wife?    But  she 
had  died  beloved  of  him,  and  for  years,  until  this  mad- 
ness overtook  him,  he  had  spoken  of  her  with  the  rev- 
erence due  to  a  departed  saint.     It  was  a  puzzle ;  the 
solution  peculiarly  interesting.     How  should  he  ob-j 
tain  it  ?    Quixtus  was  not  the  man  to  blab  his  intimate  j 
secrets  into  the  ear  of  his  hired  bravo — for  as  such  | 
he  knew  that  Quixtus  regarded  him.     It  behooved 
him  not  to  change  the  minor  key  of  this  *conversa- 
tion. 

"  A  man's  foes,"  he  quoted  in  a  murmur,*.!!  are  everj 
of  his  own  household." 


i y6     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

Quixtus  nodded  again  three  or  four  times,  with 
parted  lips. 

"  His  own  household.  Those  dearest  to  him.  The 
woman  he  loved  and  his  best  friend." 

In  spite  of  his  suspicion,  Huckaby  was  astounded 
at  the  inadvertent  confession.  In  his  last  days  of 
grace  he  had  known  Mrs.  Quixtus  and  the  best  friend. 
Swiftly  his  mind  went  back.  He  remembered  vaguely 
their  familiar  intercourse.  What  was  the  man's  name  ? 
He  groped  and  found  it. 

"  Hammersley,"  he  said  aloud. 

At  the  word,  Quixtus  started  to  his  feet  and  swept 
his  hand  over  his  face. 

"  What  are  you  talking  about  ?  What  do  you  know 
against  Hammersley  ?  " 

A  lurid  ray  shot  athwart  his  darkened  mind.  He 
realised  the  betrayal  of  his  most  jealously  guarded  se- 
cret to  Huckaby.  He  shrank  back,  growing  hot  and 
cold  through  shame. 

"  Hammersley  played  me  false  over  some  money 
affairs,"  he  said  cunningly.  "  It's  a  black  business 
which  I  will  tell  you  about  one  of  these  days." 

"  And  the  woman  ?  "  asked  Huckaby. 

"  The  woman — she — she  married.  I  am  glad  to  say 
she's  giving  her  husband  a  devil  of  a  time." 

He  laughed  nervously.  Huckaby,  with  surprising 
tact,  followed  on  the  wrong  scent  like  a  puppy. 

"  You  can  avenge  the  poor  fellow  and  yourself  at 
the  same  time,"  said  he.  "  Women  are  all  alike.  It's 
right  that  one  of  them  should  be  made  to  suffer.  You 
have  it  in  your  power  to  make  one  of  them  suffer  the 
tortures  of  hell." 

"  Yes,  yes,  I'll  do  it,"  cried  Quixtus. 

"  No  time  like  the  present." 

"  You're  right,"  said  Quixtus.  "  We'll  go  to  Paris 
together." 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     177 

For  the  first  few  days  in  Paris  Quixtus  had  little 
time  to  devote  to  the  secondary  object  of  his  visit. 
The  meetings  and  excursions  of  the  Congress  absorbed 
his  attention.  His  Parisian  confreres  took  him  to 
their  homes  and  exhibited  their  collections  of  flint  in- 
struments, their  wives  and  their  daughters.  He  at- 
tended intimate  dinners,  the  words  sans  ceremonie  be- 
ing underlined  in  the  invitation,  where  all  the  men, 
who  had  worn  evening  dress  in  the  morning  at  a  for- 
mal function  of  the  Congress,  assembled  in  the  salon 
gravely  attired  in  tightly-buttoned  frock-coats  and 
wearing  dogskin  gloves  which  they  only  took  off  when 
they  sat  down  to  table.  His  good  provincial  colleagues, 
who  thought  they  might  just  as  well  hear  the  chimes 
at  midnight  while  they  were  in  Paris  as  not,  insisted 
on  his  accompanying  them  in  their  mild  dissipation. 
This  generally  consisted  in  drinking  beer  at  a  brasserie 
filled  with  parti-coloured  ladies  and  talking  palaeolithic 
gossip  amid  the  bewildering  uproar  of  a  Tzigane 
band.  Now  and  again  Huckaby,  who  assured  him  that 
he  was  prosecuting  his  researches  in  the  fauna  of  the 
Hotel  Continental,  where,  on  Huckaby's  advice,  they 
were  staying,  would  accompany  him  on  such  adven- 
tures. 

Curiously  enough,  Quixtus  had  begun  to  like  the 
man  again.  Admitted  on  a  social  equality  and  dressed 
in  reputable  garments,  Huckaby  began  to  lose  the  as- 
sertiveness  of  manner  mingled  with  furtive  flattery 
which  of  late  had  characterised  him.  He  began  to  as- 
sume an  air  of  self-respect,  even  of  good-breeding. 
Quixtus  noticed  with  interest  the  change  wrought  in 
him  by  clothes  and  environment,  and  contrasted  him 
favourably  with  Billiter,  whom  new  and  gorgeous  rai- 
ment had  rendered  peculiarly  offensive.  There  were 
times  when  he  could  forget  the  sorry  mission  which 
Huckaby  had  undertaken,  and  find  pleasure  in  his  con- 


178     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

versation.  Scrupulous  sobriety  aided  the  temporary 
metamorphosis.  As  he  spoke  French  passably  and  had 
retained  a  considerable  amount  of  scholarship,  Quix- 
tus  (to  his  astonishment)  found  that  he  could  intro- 
duce him  with  a  certain  pride  to  his  brother  anthro- 
pologists, as  one  who  would  cast  no  discredit  on  his 
country.  Huckaby  was  quick  to  perceive  his  patron's 
change  of  attitude,  and  took  pains  to  maintain  it.  The 
novelty,  too,  of  mingling  again  with  clean-living,  in- 
tellectual and  kindly  men  afforded  him  a  keen  pleas- 
ure which  was  worth  a  week's  abstinence  from  whisky. 
Whether  it  was  worth  a  whole  life  of  respectability 
and  endeavour  was  another  matter.  The  present  suf- 
ficed him. 

He  played  the  scholarly  gentleman  so  well  that 
Quixtus  was  not  surprised,  one  afternoon,  when  pass- 
ing through  the  great  lounge  of  the  Continental,  to  see 
a  lady  rise  from  a  tea-table  and  greet  his  companion 
in  the  friendliest  manner. 

"  Eustace  Huckaby,  can  that  possibly  be  you — or  is 
it  your  ghost  ?  " 

Huckaby  bowed  over  the  proffered  hand.  "  What 
an  unexpected  delight." 

"  It's  years  and  years  since  we  met.  How 
many  ?  " 

"  I  daren't  count  them,  for  both  our  sakes,"  said 
Huckaby. 

"  Why  have  you  dropped  out  of  my  horizon  for  all 
this  time  ?  "  asked  the  lady. 

"  Mea  maxima  culpa"  He  smiled,  bowed  in  the 
best-bred  way  in  the  world,  and  half  turned  so  as  to 
bring  Quixtus  into  the  group.  "  May  I  introduce  my 
friend,  Dr.  Quixtus?  Mrs.  Fontaine." 

The  lady  smiled  sweetly.  "  You  are  Dr.  Quixtus, 
the  anthropologist  ?  " 

"  I  am  interested  in  the  subject,"  said  Quixtus. 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     179 

"  More  than  that.  I  have  read  your  book :  The 
Household  Arts  of  the  Neolithic  Age." 

"  An  indiscretion  of  youth,"  said  Quixtus. 

"  Oh,  please  don't  tell  me  it's  all  wrong,"  cried  Mrs. 
Fontaine  in  alarm.  "  I'm  always  quoting  it.  It  forms 
part  of  my  little  stock-in-trade  of  learning." 

"  Oh,  no.  It's  not  exactly  incorrect,"  said  Quixtus, 
with  a  smile,  pleased  that  so  pretty  a  lady  should  count 
among  his  disciples,  "  but  it's  superficial.  So  much  has 
been  discovered  since  I  wrote  it." 

"  But  it's  a  standard  work,  all  the  same.  I  hap- 
pened to  see  an  account  of  the  Anthropological  Con- 
gress in  the  paper  this  morning,  in  which  you  are  re- 
ferred to  as  the  eminent  anthropologue  anglais  and  the 
author  of  my  book.  I  was  so  pleased.  I  should  have 
been  more  so  had  I  known  I  was  to  meet  you  this  aft- 
ernoon. Have  you  turned  anthropologist,  too,  Mr. 
Huckaby?" 

Huckaby  explained  that  he  was  taking  advantag'e 
of  the  Congress  to  make  holiday  in  the  company  of  his 
distinguished  friend.  That  was  the  first  afternoon  the 
Congress  had  allowed  him  leisure,  and  they  had  de- 
voted it  to  contemplation  of  the  acres  of  fresh  paint 
in  the  Grand  Palais.  They  had  come  home  exhausted. 

"  Home?    Then  you're  staying  in  the  hotel?  " 
:     "  Yes,"  said  Huckaby.    "  And  you?  " 

"  I,  too.  And  in  its  vastness  I  feel  the  most  lone- 
some widow  woman  that  ever  was.  I'm  waiting  here 
for  Lady  Louisa  Mailing,  who  promised  to  join  me ; 
but  I  think  something  must  have  happened,  for  there 
is  no  sign  of  her." 

A  waiter  brought  the  tray  with  tea  which  she  had 
ordered  before  the  men's  entrance,  and  set  it  on  the 
basket  table.  Mrs.  Fontaine  motioned  to  it. 

"Won't  you  share  my  solitude  and  join  me?" 

"  With  pleasure,"  said  Huckaby. 


i8o     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA' 

Quixtus  accepted  the  invitation,  and  with  his  grave 
courtesy  withdrew  a  chair  to  make  a  passage  for  Mrs. 
Fontaine,  who  gave  the  additional  order  to  the  waiter. 
The  lounge  and  the  courtyard  were  thronged  with  a 
well-dressed  cosmopolitan  crowd,  tea-drinking,  smok- 
ing, and  chattering.  A  band  discoursed  discreet  music 
at  a  convenient  distance.  The  scene  was  cool  to  eyes 
tired  by  the  vivid  colours  of  the  salon  and  the  hot 
streets.  Quixtus  sat  down  rest  fully  by  the  side  of  his 
hostess  and  let  her  minister  to  his  wants.  He  was  sur- 
prised to  find  how  pleasant  a  change  was  the  company 
of  a  soft-voiced  and  attractive  woman  after  that  of  his 
somewhat  ponderous  and  none  too  picturesque  con- 
freres. She  was  good  to  look  upon,  an  English  blonde 
in  a  pale  lilac  dress  and  hat — the  incarnation  of  early 
summer ;  not  beautiful,  but  pleasing ;  at  the  same  time 
simple  and  exquisite.  The  arrangement  of  her  blonde 
hair,  the  fine  oval  contour  of  her  face,  the  thin,  deli- 
cate lips,  gave  her  an  air  of  chastity  which  was 
curiously  belied  by  dark  grey  eyes  dreaming  be- 
hind long  lashes.  All  her  movements,  supple  and  nat- 
ural, spoke  of  breeding;  unmistakably  a  lady.  Evi- 
dently a  friend  of  Huckaby's  before  his  fall.  Quixtus 
wondered  cynically  whether  she  would  have  greeted 
with  such  frank  gladness  the  bloodshot-eyed  scare- 
crow of  a  fortnight  before.  From  their  talk,  he 
concluded  that  she  had  no  idea  of  the  man's  degrada- 
tion. 

"  Mr.  Huckaby  and  I  knew  each  other  when  the 
world  was  young,"  she  said.  "  Centuries  ago — in  the 
palaeolithic  age — before  my  marriage." 

"  Alas !  "  said  Huckaby,  sipping  the  unaccustomed 
tea.  "  You  threw  aside  the  injunction :  arma  cedant 
toga?.  In  our  case  it  was  the  gown  that  had  to  yield 
to  the  arms.  You  married  a  soldier." 

She  sighed  and  looked  down  pensively  at  her  wed- 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     181 

ding-ring.     Then  she  glanced  up  with  a  laugh,  and 
handed  Quixtus  the  bread  and  butter. 

"  Believe  me,  Dr.  Quixtus,  this  is  the  first  time  I 
ever  heard  of  the  rivalry.  He  only  invented  it  for  the 
sake  of  the  epigram.  Isn't  that  true?  " 

"  In  one  way,"  replied  Huckaby.  "  I  was  so  insig- 
nificant that  you  never  even  noticed  it." 

She  laughed  again  and  turned  to  Quixtus. 

"  How  long  are  you  going  to  stay  in  Paris?  " 

"  Just  a  day  or  two  longer — till  the  end  of  my  Con- 
gress." 

"  Oh !  How  can  you  leave  Paris  when  she's  looking 
her  best  without  devoting  a  few  days  to  admiring  her  ? 
It's  unkind." 

"  I'm  afraid  Paris  must  get  over  the  slight." 

"  But  don't  you  love  Paris  ?  I  do.  It  is  so  fascinat- 
ing, dangerous,  treacherous.  Plunge  into  it  for  a  mo- 
ment or  two  and  it  is  the  Fountain  of  Youth.  Remain 
in  the  water  a  little  longer  than  is  prudent,  and  you 
come  out  shrivelled  and  wrinkled,  with  all  your  youth 
and  beauty  gone .  from  you." 

"  Perhaps  I  have  already  had  my  prudent  plunge," 
said  Quixtus  with  a  smile. 

"  I'm  sure  you  haven't.  You've  been  on  dry  land 
all  the  time.  Worse  than  that — in  a  quaternary  for- 
mation. Have  you  dined  at  Armenonville  ?  " 

"  In  my  time  I  have ;  but  not  this  time." 

"  Voila,"  said  Mrs.  Fontaine.  "  The  warm  June 
nights,  the  Bois  in  the  moonlight  with  all  its  mys- 
teries of  shadow,  the  fairy  palace  in  the  midst  of  it 
where  you  eat  fairy  things  surrounded  by  the  gaiety 
and  sparkle  and  laughter  of  the  world — essential  and 
symbolical  Paris — you  disregard  it  all.  And  that  is 
only  one  little  instance.  There  are  a  thousand  others. 
You've  not  even  wetted  your  feet." 

She  embroidered  her  thesis  very  gracefully,  clothing 


1 82     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

the  woman  of  the  world  in  a  diaphanous  robe  of  pretty 
fancy,  revealing  a  mind  ever  so  little  baffling,  here 
material,  there  imaginative — a  mind  as  contradictory 
as  her  face,  with  its  chaste  contours  and  its  alluring 
eyes.  Quixtus  listened  to  her  with  amused  interest. 
She  represented  a  type  with  which  he,  accustomed  to 
the  less  vivid  womenfolk  of  the  learned,  was  unfa- 
miliar. Without  leaving  Huckaby,  her  girlhood's 
friend,  out  in  the  cold,  she  made  it  delicately  evident 
that,  of  the  two,  Quixtus  was  the  more  worthy  of  at- 
tention on  account  of  his  attainments  and  the  more  at- 
tractive in  his  personality.  Quixtus,  flattered,  thought 
her  a  woman  of  great  discernment. 

"  But  you,"  said  he  at  last.  "  Have  you  made  your 
plunge — not  that  you  need  it — into  the  Fountain  of 
Youth?  Have  you  fed  on  the  honeydew  of  the  Bois 
de  Boulogne  and  drunk  the  milk  of  Armenonville  ?  " 

"  I  only  arrived  last  night,"  she  explained.  "  And 
I  must  remain  more  or  less  in  quarantine,  being  an 
unprotected  woman,  till  my  friend  Lady  Louisa  Mall- 
ing  comes,  or  till  my  friends  in  Paris  get  to  know  I 
am  here.  But  I  always  like  a  day  or  two  of  freedom 
before  announcing  myself — so  that  I  can  do  the  fool- 
ish things  that  Parisians  would  jeer  at.  I  always  go 
to  the  Louvre  and  look  at  the  little  laughing  Faun  and 
the  Giaconda,  and  I  always  go  down  the  Seine  in  a 
steamboat,  and  from  the  Madeleine  to  the  Bastille  on 
the  top  of  an  omnibus.  Then  I'm  ready  for  my 
plunge." 

"  I  should  have  thought  that  bath  of  innocence  was 
in  itself  the  Fountain  of  Youth,"  said  Huckaby. 

The  least  suspicion  of  a  frown  passed  over  Mrs. 
Fontaine's  candid  brow,  but  she  replied  with  a 
smile : 

"  On  the  contrary,  my  friend,  that  is  a  penitential 
dipping  in  the  waters  of  the  past." 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     183 

",Why  penitential  ?  "  asked  Quixtus. 

"  Isn't  it  wholesome  discipline  to  give  oneself  pain 
sometimes  ?  "  Her  face  grew  wistful.  "  To  revisit 
scenes  where  one  has  been  happy — and  sharpen  the 
knife  of  memory?  " 

"  It  is  the  instinct  of  the  ascetic,"  smiled  Quixtus. 

"  I  suppose  I  have  a  bit  of  it,"  she  replied  demurely. 
Then  her  face  brightened.  "  I  don't  wear  a  hair  shirt 
— I've  got  to  appear  in  an  evening  gown  sometimes — 
but  I  find  an  odd  little  satisfaction  in  doing  penance. 
If  I  were  a  Roman  Catholic  I  would  embarrass  my 
confessor." 

Huckaby's  lips  twitched  in  a  smile  beneath  his  mous- 
tache. If  all  the  tales  that  Billiter  told  of  Lena  Fon- 
taine were  true,  a  confessor  would  be  exceedingly  em- 
barrassed. He  regarded  her  with  admiration.  She 
was  an  entirely  different  woman  from  the  hard  and 
contemptuous  partner  in  iniquity  to  whom  Billiter  had 
introduced  him  before  he  left  London.  It  had  not 
been  a  pleasant  interview — just  the  details  of  their 
Paris  meeting  arranged,  the  story  of  their  past  ac- 
quaintance rehearsed,  and  nothing  more.  Huckaby, 
descending  her  stairs  with  Billiter,  had  felt  as  if  he 
had  been  whipped,  and  prophesied  failure.  She  was 
not  the  woman  for  Quixtus.  But  Billiter  grinned  and 
bade  him  wait.  He  had  waited,  and  now  had  the  sat- 
isfaction of  seeing  Quixtus  caught  immediately  in  the 
gossamer  web  of  her  charm.  He  wondered,  too,  how 
she  could  have  maintained  her  relations  with  so  unde- 
sirable a  person  as  Billiter,  for  whom  he  himself  en- 
tertained a  profound  contempt.  Billiter  was  unusually 
silent  on  the  matter,  letting  it  be  vaguely  understood 
that  he  had  been  in  the  Dragoon  Guardsman's  set  be- 
fore running  through  his  money,  and  that  he  had  ac- 
cidentally done  her  a  service  in  later  years.  What  that 
service  was  he  declined  to  mention.  Huckaby  sniffed 


1 84     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

blackmail.  That  was  the  more  likely  influence  keeping 
together  a  well-received  woman  of  hidden  life  and  a 
shabby  and  unpresentable  sot  like  Billiter.  He  remem- 
bered that  Billiter  had  confessed  to  a  mysterious 
source  of  income.  What  more  natural  an  explanation 
thereof  than  the  fact  that,  having  once  surprised  a 
woman's  secret  and  holding  her  reputation  in  his 
hands,  he  should  have  been  accepted  by  her,  in  des- 
peration, as  her  paid  doer  of  unavowable  offices  ?  He 
knew  that  a  woman  of  Lena  Fontaine's  type,  with  an 
assured  social  position  in  the  great  world,  does  not 
descend  into  the  half-world  without  a  desperate  strug- 
gle. Her  back  is  against  the  wall,  and  she  uses  any 
weapon  to  hand.  Hence  her  use  of  Billiter.  At  all 
events,  in  the  present  case  there  had  been  no  pretence 
of  friendship.  To  her  it  had  obviously  been  a  hateful 
matter  of  business,  which  she  had  been  anxious  to 
conclude  as  soon  as  possible.  One  condition  she  rigor- 
ously exacted:  that  her  acquaintance  with  Billiter 
should  not  be  revealed  to  Quixtus.  She  was  not  proud 
of  Billiter.  Huckaby  took  what  comfort  he  could 
from  the  thought. 

Mrs.  Fontaine  sat  talking  to  the  two  men  until  the 
tea-drinking  and  chattering  crowd  had  melted  away. 
Then  she  rose,  thanked  them  prettily  for  wasting  their 
science-filled  time  on  an  irresponsible  woman's  loneli- 
ness, and  expressed  to  Huckaby  the  hope  that  she 
would  see  him  again  before  he  left  Paris. 

"  I  trust  I,  too,  may  have  the  pleasure,"  said  Quix- 
tus. 

"  You  might  lead  us  to  the  Fountain  of  Youth  one 
of  these  evenings,"  said  Huckaby. 

"  It  would  be  delightful,"  said  the  lady,  with  a  ques- 
tioning glance  at  Quixtus. 

"  I  could  dream  of  nothing  more  pleasant,"  he  re- 
plied, bowing  in  his  old-fashioned  way. 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     185 

When  she  had  gone,  the  men  resumed  their  seats. 
Quixtus  lit  a  cigarette. 

"  A  very  charming  woman." 

Huckaby  agreed.  "  It  has  been  one  of  my  great  re- 
grets of  the  past  few  years  that  I  have  not  been  able 
to  keep  up  our  old  friendship.  We  moved  in  different 
worlds."  He  paused,  as  if  thinking  sorrowfully  of  his 
misspent  life.  "  I  hope  you  don't  mind  my  suggesting 
the  little  dinner-party,"  he  said  after  a  while.  "  My 
position  was  a  delicate  one." 

"  It  was  a  very  good  idea,"  said  Quixtus. 

Huckaby  said  little  more,  preferring  to  leave  well 
alone.  The  plot,  up  to  this  point,  had  succeeded. 
Quixtus  gave  complete  credence  to  the  story,  unsus- 
pecting that  Mrs.  Fontaine  was  the  woman  selected 
for  his  heart-breaking  experiment,  and  already  consid- 
erably attracted  by  her  personality.  Diabolical  possi- 
bilities could  be  insinuated  later.  In  the  meanwhile, 
Huckaby  had  played  his  part.  Future  success  now 
lay  in  Mrs.  Fontaine's  hands. 

Quixtus  dined  that  evening  with  one  of  his  col- 
leagues, and  Huckaby,  after  a  meal  at  a  restaurant, 
went  to  the  Comedie  Franchise  and  sat  through  Phedre 
from  beginning  to  end,  with  great  enjoyment.  The 
re-awakening  of  his  aesthetic  sense,  dulled  for  so  many 
years,  surprised  and  gratified  him. 

When  he  met  his  patron  the  next  morning  he  said 
abruptly : 

"  If  I  had  a  chance  of  getting  back  again  I'd  take 
it." 

"Getting  back  where?"  asked  Quixtus.  "To  Lon- 
don?" 

Huckaby  explained.  "  I'm  tired  of  running  crooked," 
he  added.  "  If  I  could  only  get  regular  work  to  bring 
me  in  a  few  pounds  a  week,  I'd  run  straight  and  sober 
for  the  rest  of  my  life." 


1 86     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

"  I  don't  think  I  can  help  you  to  attain  your  wishes, 
my  dear  Huckaby,"  replied  Quixtus  reflectively.  "  If 
I  did,  I  should  be  committing  a  good  action,  which,  as 
you  know,  is  entirely  against  my  principles." 

"  I  don't  yearn  so  much  after  goodness,"  said  Huck- 
aby, "  as  after  decency  and  cleanliness.  I've  no  am- 
bition to  die  a  white-haired  saint." 

"  All  white-haired  saints  are  white  sepulchres,"  said 
Quixtus. 

In  spite  of  regenerative  impulses,  Huckaby  per- 
suaded his  patron  to  lunch  at  the  hotel  where  he  knew 
that  Mrs.  Fontaine  and  the  newly  arrived  Lady  Louisa 
Mailing  had  planned  to  lunch  also.  The  establishment 
of  informal  relations  was  important.  They  entered  the 
table  d'hote  room,  and,  preceded  by  the  maitre  d'hotel, 
marched  to  the  table  reserved  for  them.  About  six 
tables  away  sat  Mrs.  Fontaine  and  her  friend.  She 
smiled  a  pleasant  greeting. 

<f  Women  can  sometimes  be  exceedingly  decorative," 
remarked  Quixtus,  helping  himself  to  sardines. 

"  If  they  are  not,  they  leave  unfulfilled  one  of  the 
main  functions  of  their  existence." 

"  Did  you  ever  know  a  good  woman  ?  " 

"  Mrs.  Fontaine  is  one  of  the  best  I've  ever  known," 
I  replied  Huckaby  at  a  venture. 

The  heart-breaking  could  be  practised  on  a  sweet 
and  virtuous  flower  of  a  woman  with  much  more  vil- 
lainous success  than  on  a  hardened  coquette. 

Quixtus  said  nothing.  His  natural  delicacy  forbade 
the  discussion  of  a  specific  woman's  moral  attributes. 

The  occupants  of  the  two  tables  met  after  lunch  in 
the  lounge,  and  had  coffee  and  cigarettes  together. 
The  men  were  presented  to  Lady  Louisa  Mailing,  an 
aimless,  dowdy  woman  of  forty,  running  to  fat.  As 
far  as  could  be  gathered  from  her  conversation,  her 
two  interests  in  life  were  Lena  Fontaine  and  food  in 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     187 

restaurants.  In  Mrs.  Fontaine's  presence  she  spoke 
chiefly  of  the  latter.  When  Mrs.  Fontaine  went  up  to 
her  room  for  a  forgotten  powder-puff,  leaving  her 
with  the  men,  she  plunged  with  animation  into  eulogy 
of  Mrs.  Fontaine's  virtues.  In  this  she  was  sincere. 
She  believed  in  Mrs.  Fontaine's  virtues,  which,  like  the 
costermonger's  giant  strawberries,  lay  ostentatiously 
at  the  top  of  her  basket  of  qualities;  and  she  was  so 
stupid  that  her  friend  could  always  dissimulate  from 
her  incurious  eyes  the  crushed  and  festering  fruit 
below. 

"  I  always  think  it  so  sad  for  a  sweet,  beautiful 
woman  like  Lena  to  be  alone  in  the  world,"  said  Lady 
Louisa  in  a  soft,  even  voice.  "  But  she's  so  brave,  so 
cheerful,  so  gentle." 

"  It's  a  wonder  she  hasn't  married  again,"  said 
Huckaby. 

"  I  don't  think  she  ever  will,"  replied  Lady  Louisa, 
"  unless  she  gets  a  man  to  understand  her.  And  where 
is  he  to  be  found?  " 

"Ah,  where?"  said  Huckaby,  to  whom  as  Mrs. 
Fontaine's  childhood  friend  this  talk  had  been  mainly 
addressed. 

Lady  Louisa  sighed  sentimentally.  She  was  an  old 
maid,  the  seventh  of  eleven  daughters  of  an  impecuni- 
ous Irish  earl  now  defunct.  Her  face,  such  as  it  was, 
had  been  her  fortune,  and  it  had  attracted  no  suitors. 

"  Not  that  she  isn't  very  much  admired.  She  knows 
hundreds  of  nice  men,  and  I'm  sure  heaps  of  them 
want  to  marry  her ;  but,  no.  She  likes  them  as  friends. 
As  a  husband  she  wants  something  more.  The  mod- 
ern man  is  so  material  and  unintellectual,  don't  you 
think  so?" 

This  Diana  (with  a  touch  of  Minerva)  among  wid- 
ows came  up,  swinging  the  little  bag  of  which  she  had 
gone  in  search. 


1 88     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

"  I'm  sure  Lady  Louisa  has  been  talking  about  me," 
she  laughed. 

"  She  has  not  been  taking  away  your  character,  I 
assure  you,"  said  Quixtus. 

"  I  know.  She  has  been  giving  me  one.  And  the 
worst  of  it  is,  I  have  to  live  up  to  it — or  at  least 
try.  I  suppose  it's  always  worth  while  having 
an  ideal  before  one,  though  it  may  be  somebody 
else's." 

"You  believe  in  an  ideal  of  goodness?"  asked 
Quixtus. 

She  raised  her  dreamy  eyes  to  his  and  looked  at 
him  candidly. 

"Why,  yes,  don't  you?" 

"  No,"  he  replied,  with  a  darkening  brow.  "  There 
is  only  one  force  in  nature,  which  is  wickedness.  Man 
sometimes  resists  it  for  fear  of  the  consequences,  and 
the  measure  of  his  cowardly  resistance  is  by  a  curious 
inversion  taken  by  him  to  be  the  measure  of  his  striv- 
ing towards  an  ideal." 

Mrs.  Fontaine  exclaimed  warmly :  "  I  must  cure  you 
of  your  pessimism." 

"  There  is  only  one  remedy." 

"And  that?" 

"  The  same  as  will  cure  the  disease  of  life." 

"  You  mean  death  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  Quixtus. 

"It's  a  remedy;  but  not  the  only  one."  Her  pale 
cheeks  flushed  adorably.  "  In  fact,  it's  only  by  a  twist 
of  language  you  can  call  it  a  remedy.  The  only 
remedy  against  the  malady  of  life  is  life  itself.  The 
bane  is  its  own  antidote.  The  only  cure  for  loss  of  il- 
lusions is  fresh  illusions,  more  illusions,  and  always 
illusions." 

"  Supposing  for  argument's  sake  you  are  right — 
where  are  they  to  come  from  ?  " 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     189 

"  They  form  of  themselves,  like  fresh  tissue  of  the 
flesh,  without  your  volition." 

"  Only  in  healthy  flesh,"  said  Quixtus,  with  his 
tired  smile.  "  So  in  a  gangrened  soul  there  can  be 
built  up  no  fresh  tissue  of  illusions." 

Womanlike,  she  begged  the  question,  maintaining 
that  there  was  no  such  thing  as  a  gangrened  soul.  She 
shuddered  prettily.  Belief  therein  was  a  horrible  su- 
perstition. She  proclaimed  her  faith  in  the  ultimate 
good  of  things.  Quixtus  said  ironically: 

"  The  ultimate  good  takes  a  long  time  coming.  In 
the  ages  in  which  I,  as  a  student,  am  interested,  men 
slew  each  other  with  honest  hatchets.  Now  they  slay 
by  the  poisoned  word  and  the  treacherous  deed.  The 
development  of  mind  has  for  its  history  the  develop- 
ment of  craft  and  cunning,  of  which  the  supreme  re- 
sults are  a  religion  as  to  whose  essential  tenets  scarcely 
two  persons  can  agree,  a  rule  of  thumb  arrangement 
of  purely  mechanical  appliances,  which  is  the  so-called 
wonder  of  wireless  telegraphy,  and  an  infinite  capacity 
for  cruelty  which  has  rendered  Hell  a  mild  and  futile 
shadow  in  human  speculation.  Whatever  hellishness 
human  imagination  could  invent  as  the  work  of  devils, 
calm  history,  the  daily  newspaper,  your  own  experience 
of  life  tells  you  has  already  been  surpassed  by  the 
work  of  man.  Sometimes  one  is  tempted  to  cry,  like 
Ferdinand  in  The  Tempest,  '  Hell  is  empty,  and  all  the 
devils  are  here ! '  But  if  it  was,  and  the  devils  were 
here,  they  would  be  hard  put  to  it  to  find  a  society  in 
which  they  should  not  be  compelled  to  hold  up  their 
tails  before  their  snouts  in  shame  and  horror.  You 
would  find  them  meeker  than  the  meekest  of  the 
Young  Men's  Christian  Association." 

He  spoke  with  a  certain  crazy  earnestness  which  ar- 
rested Lena  Fontaine.  Heartless,  desperate,  cynical 
though  she  was,  intelligent,  too,  and  swift  of  brain, 


i9o     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

she  had  never  formulated  to  herself  so  disastrous  a 
philosophy.  She  leaned  forward,  an  elbow  on  the 
wickerwork  table. 

"  Such  a  faith  is  dreadful,"  she  said  seriously.  "  It 
reduces  living  among  one's  fellow-creatures  to  walk- 
ing through  a  horde  of  savages — never  knowing 
whether  some  one  may  not  club  you  on  the  head  or 
stab  you  in  the  back." 

"  Can  you  ever  tell  whether  your  dearest  friend  isn't 
going  to  stab  you  in  the  back?  "  asked  Quixtus. 

His  pale  blue  eyes  held  her  with  a  curious  insistence. 
Her  eyelids  flickered  with  something  like  shame  as 
though  she  had  divined  a  personal  application  of  the 
question.  She  shivered ;  this  time  naturally. 

"  Oh,  I  love  to  believe  in  goodness,"  she  exclaimed, 
"  although  I  may  not  practise  every  virtue  myself. 
There  would  be  no  sunshine  in  a  purely  wicked  world." 
She  plucked  up  courage  and  looked  him  in  the  face. 

"  Do  you  think  I,  for  instance,  am  just  one  mass  of 
badness?  " 

"  My  dear  Mrs.  Fontaine,"  replied  the  pessimist, 
with  his  courtly  smile,  "  you  must  not  crush  me  by 
using  the  privilege  of  your  sex — arguing  from  general 
to  particular." 

"  But  do  you  ?  "  she  insisted. 

"  I  believe,"  said  he,  with  a  little  inclination  of  his 
head,  "  all  that  Lady  Louisa  has  been  telling  me." 

The  talk  ran  for  a  while  in  lighter  channels.  Lady 
Louisa  and  Huckaby,  who  had  been  discussing  cookery 
— he  had  held  her  in  watery-mouthed  attention  while 
he  gave  her  from  memory  Izaak  Walton's  recipe  for 
roasting  a  jack — joined  in  the  conversation. 

'  You  two  have  been  having  a  very  deep  argument," 
said  Lady  Louisa. 

"  I  have  been  trying  to  convert  him  to  optimism," 
laughed  Mrs.  Fontaine.  "  It  seems  to  be  difficult.  But 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     191 

I'll  do  so  in  time.  I'm  a  determined  woman.  I've  a 
good  mind  to  forbid  you  to  leave  Paris  before  your 
conversion." 

"  The  process  would  be  pleasant,  though  the  result 
would  be  problematical." 

"  I'm  not  going  to  argue  with  you.  I  just  want  to 
make  you  see  things  for  yourself." 

"  I  will  submit  gladly  to  your  guidance,"  said  Quix- 
tus. 

She  looked  at  the  little  watch  on  her  bracelet,  and 
her  rising  brought  the  little  party  to  their  feet. 

"  Shall  we  begin  now  ?  I'm  going  to  walk  up  the 
Rue  de  la  Paix  and  see  the  shops." 

Quixtus  also  consulted  his  watch.  "  I  shall  be  hon- 
oured if  you  will  let  me  walk  up  the  Rue  de  la  Paix 
with  you.  But  then  I  must  reluctantly  leave  you.  I 
must  meet  my  confreres  of  the  Congress  at  the  rail- 
way-station to  go  to  Sevres  to  see  Monsieur  Sardanel's 
collection." 

"  What  has  Sevres  china  to  do  with  anthropology  ?  " 

He  smiled  at  her  ignorance.  Monsieur  Sardanel  had 
the  famous  collection  of  Mexican  antiquities — terra- 
cotta rattles  and  masks  and  obsidian-edged  swords. 

Her  long  lashes  swept  shyly  upwards.  "  I'm  sure 
I  could  show  you  much  more  interesting  things  than 
those." 

It  was  a  long  time  since  a  pretty  and  fascinating 
woman  had  evinced  a  desire  for  his  company.  He 
was  a  man,  as  well  as  a  diabolically-minded  anthro- 
pologist. Yet  there  was  a  green  avanturine  quartz 
axehead  in  the  collection  which  he  particularly  lusted 
to  behold.  He  stood  irresolute,  while  Mrs.  Fontaine 
turned  with  a  laugh  and  took  Lady  Louisa  aside.  He 
caught  Huckaby's  glance,  in  which  he  surprised  a 
flicker  of  anxiety.  Huckaby  was  wondering  whether 
this  was  the  right  moment  to  speak.  It  seemed  so. 


I92     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

Yet  the  more  he  thought  over  the  matter,  the  less  was 
he  inclined  to  cut  the  disgraceful  figure  in  Quixtus's 
eyes  of  the  base  betrayer  of  his  supposed  childhood's 
flower-like  friend.  Here,  however,  was  the  wished-for 
opportunity,  when  Quixtus  was  evidently  hesitating 
between  primitive  clay  masks  and  a  living  woman's 
face.  He  resolved  to  throw  all  the  onus  of  the  de- 
cision on  Quixtus's  shoulders. 

"  I'm  afraid  these  dear  ladies  rather  interfere  with 
the  prospects  of  our  little  adventure,"  he  said,  drawing 
him  a  step  or  two  from  the  table  where  they  had  been 
sitting. 

"  I  never  thought  of  it,"  said  Quixtus  truthfully. 

Then  an  idea  of  malignant  cunning  took  possession 
of  his  brain.  Mrs.  Fontaine  should  be  the  woman, 
and  Huckaby  should  not  know.  Her  heart  he  would 
break  and,  when  it  was  broken,  he  would  confound 
Huckaby  with  the  piteous  shards  and  enjoy  a  doubly 
diabolical  triumph.  In  the  meantime  he  must  dissem- 
ble ;  for  Huckaby  would  not  deliberately  allow  his  old 
friend's  happiness  to  be  wrecked.  To  hide  a  smile  he 
crossed  the  passage  of  the  lounge  and  lit  a  cigarette 
from  matches  on  one  of  the  tables.  Then  he  turned. 

"  My  dear  fellow,"  said  he,  "  let  us  talk  no  more 
about  the  adventure,  as  you  call  it.  It  never  really 
pleased  me." 

"  But  surely "  Huckaby  began. 

"  It's  distasteful,"  he  interrupted,  "  and  there's  an 
end  of  it." 

"  As  you  will,"  said  Huckaby,  for  the  moment  un- 
certain. 

Mrs.  Fontaine  approached  them  smiling,  provocative 
in  the  dainty  candour  of  her  white  dress  and  hat. 

"  Well  ?    Have  you  decided  ?  " 

Quixtus  paused  for  the  fraction  of  a  second.  The 
lady  swept  him  with  her  dreamy  glance.  A  modern 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     193 

Merlin,  he  yielded.  This  delicious  wickedness  at  last 
on  foot,  Sardanel  and  all  his  spoils  of  Mexico  could 
go  hang. 

"  For  the  afternoon,"  said  he,  "  I  am  your  humble 
disciple." 

They  went  forth  together,  outwardly  as  gay  a  com- 
pany as  ever  issued  through  the  great  gates  of  the 
Hotel  Continental  into  the  fairyland  of  Paris;  in- 
wardly, save  one  of  their  number,  psychological  com- 
plexities as  dark  as  any  that  have  emerged  into  its 
mocking  and  inscrutable  spirit.  Of  the  three,  Quix- 
tus,  the  tender-hearted  scholar  of  darkened  mind,  who 
could  no  more  have  broken  a  woman's  heart  than  have 
trampled  on  a  baby,  pathetically  bent  on  his  intellec- 
tually-conceived career  of  Evil  and  entirely  uncon- 
scious of  being  himself  the  dupe  and  victim — of  the 
three,  Quixtus  was  certainly  the  happiest.  Huckaby, 
touched  with  shame,  avoided  meeting  his  accomplice's 
eye.  He  walked  in  front  with  Lady  Louisa,  finding 
refuge  in  her  placid  dulness. 

Once  during  the  afternoon,  when  Lena  Fontaine 
found  herself  for  a  moment  by  his  side,  she  laughed 
cynically. 

"  Do  you  know  what  you  two  remind  me  of  ? 
Martha  and  Mephistopheles." 

"  And  you  are  Gretchen  to  the  life." 

The  retort  was  obvious;  but  apparently  it  was  not 
anticipated.  Mrs.  Fontaine  flushed  scarlet  at  the  sneer. 
She  looked  at  him  hard-eyed,  and  said,  with  set  teeth : 

"  I  wish  to  God  I  were." 


CHAPTER  XIV 

SOMETHING  was  wrong  with  Tommy  Burgrave. 
Instead  of  flinging  excited  hands  in  the  direc- 
tion of  splendid  equipage  or  beautiful  woman, 
he  sat  glum  by  Clementina's  side,  while  the  most  daz- 
zling procession  in  Europe  passed  before  his  eyes.  Of 
course  it  was  a  little  cockneyfied  to  sit  on  a  public 
bench  on  the  edge  of  the  great  Avenue  of  the  Champs 
Elysees;  but  Clementina  knew  that  consciousness  of 
cockneydom  would  not  disturb  the  serenity  of  Tom- 
my's soul.  Something  else  was  the  matter.  He  was 
ill  at  ease.  Gloom  darkened  his  brow  and  care 
perched  on  his  shoulders. 

The  car  of  thirty-five  million  dove-power  which  had 
brought  the  wanderers,  the  day  before,  to  Paris,  had 
deposited  Etta  Concannon  at  the  house  of  some  friends 
for  a  few  hours'  visit,  and  Tommy  and  Clementina 
at  Ledoyen's,  where  they  had  lunched.  It  was  over  the 
truite  a  la  gelee  that  Tommy's  conversation  had  begun 
to  flag.  His  melancholy  deepened  as  the  meal  pro- 
ceeded. When  they  strolled,  after  lunch,  across  to 
the  Avenue,  his  face  assumed  an  expression  of  acute 
misery.  He  sat  forward,  elbows  on  knees,  and  traced 
sad  diagrams  on  the  gravel  with  the  point  of  his  cane. 

"  My  good  Tommy,"  said  Clementina  at  last — what 
on  earth  was  the  matter  with  the  boy? — "  you  look  as 
merry  as  a  museum." 

He  groaned.  "  I'm  in  a  devil  of  a  fix,  Clementina." 

"Indeed?" 

What  could  he  be  in  a  fix  about?  Anything  more 
194 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     195 

aggravatingly,  insolently,  excruciatingly  happy  than 
the  pair  of  young  idiots  whom  she  had  accompanied 
in  the  thirty-five  million  dove-power  car  aforesaid, 
she  had  never  beheld  in  her  life.  Sometimes  it  was  as 
much  as  she  could  do  to  restrain  herself  from  stopping 
the  car  and  dumping  the  pair  of  them  down  by  the 
wayside  and  telling  them  to  go  and  play  Daphnis  and 
Chloe  by  themselves  in  the  sylvan  solitudes  of  France, 
instead  of  conducting  their  antic  gambols  over  her 
heartstrings.  The  air  re-echoed  deafeningly  with  coo- 
ings,  and  the  sky  grew  sickly  with  smiles.  What  could 
a  young  man  in  love  want  more  ? 

"  It's  the  biggest,  aw  fullest  mess  that  ever  a  fellow 
got  into,"  said  Tommy. 

"  Well,  I  suppose  it's  your  own  fault,"  she  remarked, 
\vith  just  a  touch  of  the  vindictive.  She  had  emptied 
her  heart  of  heaven  and  thrown  it  at  the  boy's  feet, 
and  he  had  not  so  much  as  said  "  thank  you." 

"  I'm  not  so  sure,"  said  Tommy. 

"  That's  just  like  a  man,"  said  Clementina.  "  Every 
one  of  you  is  ready  enough  to  cry  peccavi,  but  it's  in- 
variably somebody  else's  maxima  culpa." 

"  I  didn't  cry  peccavi  at  all,"  said  Tommy.  "  I  sup- 
pose I  had  better  do  so,  though,"  he  added,  after  a 
gloomy  pause.  "  I've  been  a  cad.  I've  been  abusing 
your  hospitality.  Any  man  of  honour  would  kick  me 
all  over  the  place.  But  I  swear  to  you  it  was  not  my 
fault.  How  the  deuce  could  I  help  it?  " 

"  Help  what,  my  good  Tommy?" 

Tommy  dug  his  stick  fiercely  in  the  gravel.  "  Help 
falling  in  love  with  Etta.  There!  now  it's  out.  Of 
course  you  had  no  idea  of  it." 

"Of  course  not,"  said  Clementina,  with  a  wry  twist 
of  her  mouth,  not  knowing  whether  to  shriek  with 
insane  laughter  or  with  pain  at  the  final  cut  of  the 
whip  with  which  she  had  flagellated  the  offending  Eve. 


196     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

But  her  grim  sense  of  humour  prevailed,  though  her 
strength  allowed  it  to  manifest  itself  only  in  the  twin- 
kling of  her  keen  eyes. 

"  I  don't  know  what  you  can  think  of  me,"  said 
Tommy. 

She  made  no  reply,  reflecting  on  the  success  of  her 
comedy.  As  she  had  planned,  so  had  it  fallen  out. 
She  had  saved  her  own  self-respect — more,  her  self- 
honour — and  she  had  saved  him  from  making  muddy 
disaster  of  his  own  life.  The  simplicity  of  the  boy 
touched  her  deeply.  The  dear,  ostrich  reasoning  of 
youth !  Of  course  she  had  no  idea  of  it !  She  looked 
at  him,  sitting  there,  as  a  man  sometimes  looks  at  a 
very  pure  woman — with  a  pitying  reverence  in  her 
eyes.  But  Tommy  did  not  see  the  look,  contemplating 
as  he  was  the  blackness  of  his  turpitude.  For  each  of 
them  it  was  a  wholesome  moment. 

"  You  see,  not  only  was  I  your  guest,  but  I  held  a 
kind  of  position  of  trust,"  continued  Tommy.  "  She 
was,  as  it  were,  in  my  charge.  If  I  had  millions,  I 
oughtn't  to  have  fallen  in  love  with  her.  As  I'm  ab- 
solutely penniless,  it's  a  crime." 

"  I  don't  think  falling  in  love  with  a  sweet  girl  is  a 
crime,"  said  Clementina  gently.  "  There's  one  in  that 
automobile" — she  nodded  in  the  direction  of  a  rosebud 
piece  of  womanhood  in  a  carriage  that  was  held  up  by 
a  block  in  the  traffic,  just  in  front  of  them.  "  If  any 
man  fell  in  love  with  her  right  off,  as  she  sat  there, 
not  knowing  her,  it  wouldn't  be  a  crime.  It  would  be 
a  divine  adventure." 

"  She's  not  worth  two  penn'orth  of  paint,"  said 
Tommy  disparagingly — now  Clementina  has  told  me 
that  this  was  a  singularly  beautiful  girl — such  are 
other  women  than  his  Dulcinea  in  the  eyes  of  the  true 
lover — "  she  isn't  even  doll-pretty.  But  suppose  she 
were,  for  the  sake  of  argument — it  might  be  a  divine 


197 

adventure  for  the  fool  who  fell  in  love  with  her  and 
never  told  her ;  but  for  the  penniless  cad  who  went  up 
and  told  her — and  got  her  love  in  return — it  would  be 
a  crime." 

Now  it  must  be  remembered  that  Tommy  was  en- 
tirely ignorant  of  the  fact  that  a  fortune  of  two  thou- 
sand pounds,  the  spoils  of  Old  Joe  Jenks,  was  coyly  ly- 
ing at  his  banker's,  who  had  made  the  usual  acknowl- 
edgment to  the  payer-in  and  not  to  the  payee. 

"  So  you've  told  Etta  ?  "  said  Clementina,  feeling 
curiously  remote  from  him  and  yet  curiously  drawn 
to  him. 

'  This  morning,"  said  Tommy,  glowering  at  the 
ground.  "  In  the  hall  of  the  hotel,  waiting  for  you 
to  come  down." 

"  Oh !  "  said  Clementina,  who  had  deliberately  lin- 
gered. 

"  It  wasn't  your  fault,"  said  Tommy  with  dark  mag- 
nanimity. "  It  was  the  fault  of  that  damned  glove. 
She  asked  me  to  button  it  for  her.  Why  do  women 
wrear  gloves  thirty  sizes  too  small  for  them?  Why 
can't  they  wear  sensible  easy  things  like  a  man?  I 
was  fussing  over  the  infernal  thing — I  had  somehow 
got  her  arm  perpendicular  in  front  of  her  face  and  I 
was  bending  down  and  she  was  looking  up — oh,  can't 
you  see  ?  "  He  broke  off  impatiently. 

"Oh,  yes,  I  can  see,"  replied  Clementina.  "  And  I 
suppose  Etta  was  utterly  indignant  ?  " 

"  That's  the  devil  of  it,"  said  the  conquering  but 
miserable  lover.  "  She  wasn't." 

"  She  wasn't?  "  asked  Clementina. 

"  No,"  said  Tommy. 

"  Then  I'm  shocked  at  her,"  said  Clementina.  "  She 
was  in  my  charge,  enjoying  my  hospitality.  She  had 
no  business  to  fall  in  love  with — with  my" — she 
floundered  for  a  second — "with  my  invalid  guest" 


198     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

"  Pretty  sort  of  invalid  I  am,"  said  Tommy,  who, 
through  the  masquerade  of  woe,  appealed  to  passers- 
by,  especially  to  those  of  the  opposite  sex,  as  the  em- 
bodiment of  fair  Anglo-Saxon  lustiness.  "  She  isn't 
to  blame,  poor  dear.  I  am,  and  yet,  confound  it !  I'm 
not — for  how  could  I  help  it?  But  what  the  deuce 
there  is  in  me,  Clementina  dear,  for  the  most  exquisite 
thing  God  ever  made  to  care  for,  God  only  knows." 

Clementina  put  her  hand — the  glove  on  it,  so  differ- 
ent from  Etta's,  was  thirty  sizes  too  large;  it  was  of 
white  cotton,  and  new — she  had  sent  the  page  boy  of 
the  hotel  that  morning  to  buy  her  a  pair — she  put  her 
gloved  hand  on  his.  At  the  touch  he  raised  his  eyes  to 
her's.  He  saw  in  them  something — he  was  too  young 
and  ingenuous  to  know  what — but  something  he  had 
not  seen  in  Clementina's  eyes  before. 

"  You're  right,  my  dear  boy,"  she  said.  "  God 
knows.  That  being  so,  it  is  up  to  Him,  as  the  Ameri- 
cans say,  to  make  good.  And  He'll  make  good.  That 
is,  if  you  really  love  that  little  girl." 

"  Love  her !  "  cried  Tommy.     "  Why " 

"  Yes,  yes,"  Clementina  interrupted  hastily.  "  I'm 
convinced  of  it.  You  needn't  go  into  raptures."  She 
had  endured  much  the  last  few  weeks.  She  felt  now 
that  the  penance  of  listening  to  amatory  dithyrambics 
was  supererogatory.  "  All  I  want  to  know  is  that  you 
love  her  like  a  man." 

"  That  I  do,"  said  Tommy. 

"And  she  loves  you?" 

Tommy  nodded  lugubriously.  She  loved  him  for 
nodding. 

"  Then  why  the  devil  are  you  trying  to  make  me 
miserable  on  this  beautiful  afternoon?  " 

He  twisted  round  on  the  bench  and  faced  her. 
"  Then  you're  not  angry  with  me — you  don't  think 
I've  been  a  blackguard  ?  " 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     199 

"  I  think  the  two  of  you  are  innocent  lambs,"  said 
Clementina. 

Tommy  grinned.  He,  the  seasoned  man  of  the 
world  of  twenty-three,  to  be  called  an  innocent  lamb! 
Much  Clementina  knew  about  it. 

"All  the  same,"  said  he,  reverting  to  his  gloom, 
"  you're  different  from  other  people ;  you  have  your 
own  way  of  looking  at  things.  Ordinary  folk  would 
say  I  had  behaved  abominably.  Admiral  Concannon 
would  kick  me  out  of  the  house  if  I  went  and  asked 
him  for  his  daughter.  It's  Gilbertian !  There's  a  Bab 
Ballad  almost  on  the  same  theme,"  he  laughed.  "  I 
guess  I'd  better  not  speak  to  the  Admiral  yet  awhile." 

"  I  guess  not,"  said  Clementina.  "  Leave  well  alone 
for  the  present." 

This  advice  she  gave  to  Etta  when  that  young  per- 
son, before  going  to  bed,  told  her  the  marvellous  news. 
But  Etta's  anxiety  as  to  future  ways  and  means  was 
the  least  of  her  preoccupations,  which  consisted,  in 
the  main,  of  wonder  at  Tommy's  transcendent  perfec- 
tions, and  at  her  extraordinary  good  fortune  in  win- 
ning the  favour  of  such  a  miracle  of  a  man.  Clemen- 
tina left  her  radiant  and  went  to  bed  with  a  headache 
and  a  bit  of  a  heartache.  The  one  little  Elf  of  Ro- 
mance that  had  crossed  her  grey  path  she  had  snubbed 
unmercifully.  Would  ever  another  chance  come  by? 
Would  he  not  go  back  and  tell  his  congeners  of  the 
flinty-bosomed,  sour-avised  female  who  had  nearly 
frightened  him  to  death,  and  bid  them  all  beware  of 
her  devastating  presence?  It  was  no  use  her  saying 
that  she  loved  the  Elf  with  all  her  heart,  but  had  to 
dissemble  her  love,  for  the  Elf,  like  the  lover  in  the 
poem,  would  naturally  ask  the  historic  question.  Yet 
she  did  love  him,  and  in  the  secrecy  of  her  soul  longed 
for  such  another — but  one  perhaps  who  would  put  be- 
fore her  a  less  Puckish  proposition.  How  could  she 


200     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

attract  one?    With  what  lure  could  she  entice  him? 

"  Bosh!  "  she  said,  after  a  couple  of  sleepless  hours. 
"  It's  high  time  I  was  back  at  work  again." 

Now,  be  it  here  definitely  stated  that  Clementina 
misjudged  the  Elf.  He  was  mightily  amused  by  her 
treatment  of  him,  and  ran  away  with  his  elfin  thumb 
to  his  elfin  nose  in  the  most  graceless  and  delicious 
manner  possible.  He  swore  revenge.  In  his  cobweb 
seat  he  thought  hard.  Then  he  slapped  his  thighs  and 
laughed,  and  returned  to  Elfland  where  he  raised  a 
prodigious  commotion. 

The  result  of  this  will  be  duly  set  forth  in  the  fol- 
lowing pages. 

"  We  leave  Paris  to-morrow,"  said  Clementina,  but- 
toning her  cotton  gloves.  "  I  must  work,  and  Tommy 
must  work,  and  Etta  must  learn  to  cook  and  sew  and 
scrub  saucepans.  The  holiday  is  about  to  end." 

Two  sighs  greeted  the  announcement. 

"  Can't  we  have  one  other  day  ?  "  Etta  pleaded. 

"  You  just  need  the  extra  day  to  make  you  quite  fit 
again,"  said  Tommy. 

Clementina,  unmoved  by  pleading  or  sophistry,  re- 
plied, "  We  start  to-morrow." 

Etta  looked  at  Tommy  and  sorrowfully  licked  from 
her  finger-tips  the  squirted  cream  of  an  eclair.  They 
had  just  finished  tea  at  Colombin's,  a  form  of  amuse- 
ment to  which  Etta  was  addicted.  She  liked  the 
crowded  room,  the  band,  the  bustle  of  the  waitresses 
and  the  warm  smell  of  tea  and  chocolate  and  pastry. 
She  also  had  the  perverted  craving  of  female  youth 
to  destroy  its  appetite  for  dinner.  She  looked  at 
Tommy  and  cleansed  herself  from  eclair  like  a  dainty 
kitten;  but  Tommy's  eyes  were  fixed  to  the  entrance 
of  the  tea-room.  He  half  rose  from  his  chair. 

"Lord  Almighty,  if  that  isn't  Uncle  Ephraim!" 

"  Where  ?  "  cried  Clementina. 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     201 

He  nodded,  and  Clementina,  turning  her  head,  saw 
Quixtus,  one  of  a  party  of  four,  two  men  and  two 
ladies,  threading  their  way  between  the  chattering 
tables  under  the  guidance  of  a  waitress.  They  found 
places  not  far  off.  Quixtus  sat  down  with  his  back  to 
Clementina. 

"  I  wonder  whom  he  has  got  hold  of,"  said  Tommy. 

"  She's  awfully  pretty,"  said  Etta,  glancing  at  Mrs. 
Fontaine. 

"  Passable,"  said  Tommy.  "  I  don't  care  for  women 
who  look  like  nuns." 

"  She  doesn't  look  a  bit  like  a  nun,"  she  contra- 
dicted. "  She's  talking  and  laughing  like  anything." 

Clementina  said  nothing,  but  studied  the  woman's 
face.  The  portrait  painter's  instinct  arose.  She  would 
like  to  get  her  in  the  sitter's  chair  and  see  what  sort 
of  a  thing  would  come  out  on  the  canvas.  The  woman 
seemed  to  be  the  mistress  of  the  feast.  It  was  she  who- 
apportioned  the  seats  and  gave  the  orders ;  also  it  was 
she  who  led  the  animated  conversation.  The  party 
seemed  to  be  intimate. 

"  Whatever  the  crowd  is,  they're  having  a  good 
time,"  said  Tommy.  "  An  unusual  thing  for  my 
uncle." 

"  Perhaps  that's  because  he's  crazy,"  suggested  Etta. 

"  Perhaps,"  said  Tommy.  "  I  should  like  to  knock 
some  sanity  into  him,  though,"  he  added  ruefully; 
"  especially  as  things  are  at  present." 

"  So  should  I,"  remarked  Clementina,  and  again  she 
scrutinised  the  woman's  face. 

"  Perhaps  his  reason  will  come  back  when  he  sees 
Etta!"  cried  Tommy,  laughing  boyishly.  "I'll  go 
and  present  her." 

'  You'll  do  no  such  thing,"  said  Clementina. 

But  Clementina,  when  they  had  risen  to  leave  the 
tea-room,  found  that  she  had  counted  without  her 


202     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

hosts,  who  had  arranged  the  crowded  tables  in  such  a 
manner  that  in  order  to  reach  the  exit  door,  she  and 
her  charges  had  to  pass  immediately  behind  Huckaby, 
who  sat  facing  Quixtus.  Chance  had  also  caused  a 
temporary  blocking  of  the  gangway  a  little  further  on. 
The  trio  came  to  a  compulsory  standstill  beside  the 
quartette.  Tommy  stretched  out  a  frank  hand. 

"  Hullo,  Uncle  Ephraim !  What  are  you  doing 
here?" 

Quixtus  rose  and  took  the  proffered  hand,  but  he 
did  not  answer  the  indiscreet  question. 

"How  d'ye  do,  Tommy?  I  hope  I  see  you  well." 
Then  he  became  conscious  of  Clementina,  whom  he 
greeted  with  stiff  courtesy. 

"  I  must  present  you  to  Miss  Etta  Concannon,"  said 
Tommy.  "  This  is  my  uncle,  Dr.  Quixtus.  We've 
been  motoring  all  over  France  with  Clementina.  Had 
a  gorgeous  time." 

Again  Clementina  looked  at  the  woman  with  the 
nun's  face  and  the  alluring  eyes,  and  this  time  the 
woman  looked  at  Clementina.  Between  the  two  pairs 
of  eyes  was  a  second's  invisible  rapier  play.  Mrs. 
Fontaine  broke  into  a  laugh. 

"Won't  you  introduce  me,  Dr.  Quixtus?"  And 
then,  the  introductions  being  effected — "  I  hope  you're 
staying  a  long  while  in  Paris." 

"  We  leave  to-morrow,"  snapped  Clementina.  "  And 
you?  "  she  asked,  turning  to.  Quixtus. 

He  made  a  vague  gesture.  A  week's  Seine  water 
had  flowed  beneath  the  bridges  since  he  had  first  walked 
up  the  Rue  de  la  Paix  with  Mrs.  Fontaine,  and  that 
week  had  been  full  of  interest,  morbid  and  otherwise. 
Not  only  did  he  hug  himself  in  his  imaginary  wrap  of 
diabolical  wickedness,  but  also— if  he  could  admit  the 
truth — he  was  enjoying  himself  enormously  in  the 
most  blameless  fashion.  Mrs.  Fontaine  showing  no 


HELLO,    UXCLE   EFHRAISlI      WHAT   ARE    YOU   DOING    HERE?" 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     203 

particular  desire  to  leave  Paris,  he  had  adjourned 
his  own  departure  sine  -die. 

"  I  am  remaining  some  time  yet,"  he  replied. 

"  In  the  interests  of  Prehistoric  Man?  " 

The  implication  was  brutal.  Two  little  red  spots 
rose  to  Mrs.  Fontaine's  cheeks.  She  conceived  a  sud- 
den hatred  for  the  rough-voiced,  keen-eyed  creature 
with  her  untidy  hair  and  caricature  of  a  hat.  A  retort, 
containing  the  counter-implication  of  Clementina's  re- 
semblance to  a  prehistoric  woman,  was  tempting.  But 
it  would  lay  herself  open  to  obvious  attack.  She 
laughed. 

"  We  are  all  helping  Dr.  Quixtus  to  recover  from 
Prehistoric  Man.  He  has  just  been  attending  an  An- 
thropological Congress." 

"  Umph !  "  said  Clementina. 

"  Where  are  you  staying,  Uncle  Ephraim?"  asked 
Tommy. 

"  At  the  Hotel  Continental." 

"  I'll  come  and  look  you  up — to-night  or  to-morrow 
morning." 

Why  should  he  not  treat  Quixtus  as  hard-hearted 
uncles  are  treated  in  the  story-books  ?  Videlicet,  why 
should  not  Etta  and  himself  go  hand  in  hand  before 
him,  tell  him  their  tragic  and  romantic  history,  and, 
falling  pathetically  on  their  knees,  beg  for  his  bless- 
ing and  subvention?  To  thrust  so  fair  a  flower 
as  Etta  from  him — surely  he  could  not  be  as  crazy  as 
all  that  ?  But  Quixtus  threw  cold  water  on  the  ardent 
fancy. 

"  I'm  sorry  to  say  that  both  to-night  and  to-morrow 
morning  I  shall  be  engaged." 

"  Then  I'll  look  you  up  in  London  when  you  get 
back,"  said  Tommy  cheerfully. 

A  gangway  to  the  door  being  now  clear,  Clemen- 
tina made  perfunctory  adieux  to  Quixtus  and  his 


204     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

friends,  and  henlike,  marshalling  her  two  chickens  in 
front  of  her,  sailed  out  of  the  tea-room. 

"  He  doesn't  look  at  all  horrid,"  said  Etta,  when 
they  reached  the  street.  "  I  wonder  what  makes  him 
behave  so.  And  how  generous  of  you,  Tommy,  to  be 
so  sweet  to  him !  " 

Tommy  smiled  as  if  he  were  compact  of  lofty 
qualities. 

"  I've  been  blessing  him  all  the  time,"  he  whispered 
in  her  ear,  "  for  if  it  hadn't  been  for  his  craziness  I 
shouldn't  be  here  with  you." 

Clementina  trudged  on  in  silence  until  they  turned 
into  the  Rue  Saint-Honore,  where  their  hotel  was  sit- 
uated. Then  she  said  suddenly : 

"  I  don't  like  your  uncle,  and  I  don't  like  his  friends. 
I'm  sorry  we  ran  into  them.  If  we  stayed  on  in  Paris 
we  should  be  running  into  them  every  day.  I'm  glad 
we're  clearing  out  to-morrow." 

Whereupon  the  Elf,  who  had  returned  from  Elf- 
land  to  haunt  her,  laughed  immoderately ;  for  he  knew 
that  at  the  bureau  of  the  hotel  a  telegram  was  awaiting 
her. 


CHAPTER  XV 

CLEMENTINA  sat  in  the  vestibule  and  fanned 
herself  with  the  telegram.    It  was  from  Mar- 
seilles and  had  been  telegraphed  on  from  Lon- 
don.   It  ran: 

"  Doctors  say  I  am  dying.  Come  at  once  here,  Hotel 
Louvre.  Matter  of  life  and  death.  Am  wiring  Quix- 
tus  also.  For  Heaven's  sake  both  come. 

"  WILL  HAMMERSLEY." 

It  was  a  shock.  Hammersley's  letter  of  a  few  weeks 
ago  had  prepared  her  for  his  indefinite  advent ;  but  the 
thought  of  death  had  not  come  to  her.  Will  Ham- 
mersley  was  dying,  apparently  alone,  in  an  hotel  at 
Marseilles;  dying,  too,  in  an  atmosphere  of  mys- 
tery, for  he  must  see  her,  and  Quixtus,  too,  before  he 
died.  The  message  was  urgent,  the  appeal  imperative. 

"  Oh,  Clementina,  I  hope  it's  not  bad  news,"  cried 
Etta. 

Clementina  handed  the  telegram  to  Tommy. 

"  It's  from  the  sick  man  of  Shanghai  who  pined  for 
the  English  lanes." 

"  Poor  chap,"  said  Tommy  very  gently.  "  Poor 
chap !  I  remember  him  well.  A  fine  upstanding  fel- 
low, one  of  the  best.  Once  he  gave  me  a  cricket-bat." 
The  artist  in  him  shivered.  "  It's  awful  to  think  of  a 
man  like  that  dying.  What  are  you  going  to  do?  " 

"What  do  you  think?" 

205 


206     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

"  Take  the  night  train  to  Marseilles,"  replied 
Tommy. 

"  Then  why  did  you  ask  ?  "  said  Clementina. 

"  But  what  shall  we  do  ?  "  cried  Etta. 

"  Oh,  you  and  Tommy  can  stay  here  till  I  come 
back." 

Etta  gasped  and  blushed  crimson.  "  That  would  be 
very  nice — but — but — I  don't  think  dad  would  quite 
like  it." 

"  Oh,  Lord !  "  cried  Clementina,  "  I  was  forgetting 
those  confounded  conventions.  They  do  complicate 
life  so.  And  I  suppose  I  can't  send  you  away  with 
Tommy  in  the  motor,  either.  And  now  I  come  to  think 
of  it,  I  can't  go  away  to-night  and  leave  you  two  to 
travel  together  to  London  to-morrow.  What  on  earth 
are  women  put  in  the  world  for,  especially  young  ones  ? 
They're  more  worry  than  they're  worth.  And  if  I  left 
Tommy  here  and  took  you  with  me  to  Marseilles, 
you'd  be  as  handy  to  travel  with,  in  the  circumstances, 
as  a  wedding-cake.  I  don't  know  what  to  do  with 
you." 

Etta  suggested  that  the  Jacksons — the  friends  whom 
she  had  visited  the  previous  day — might  take  her  in 
till  Clementina  came  back.  Indeed,  they  had  invited 
her  to  stay  with  them. 

"  Go  and  telephone  them  at  once,"  said  Clementina. 

"  You'll  have  Uncle  Ephraim  as  a  travelling  com- 
panion," Tommy  remarked  as  Etta  was  leaving  them. 

Clementina  rubbed  a  distracted  brow,  not  to  the 
well-being  of  her  front  hair. 

"  Lord  save  us !    He'll  be  worse  than  Etta." 

"  Poor  dear  Clementina,"  he  said,  and  turned  away 
to  administer  help  and  counsel  to  his  beloved  in  the 
complicated  matter  of  the  telephone. 

Suddenly  Clementina  started  to  her  feet.  Perhaps 
Quixtus's  telegram  had  not  been  forwarded  as  hers 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     207 

had  been.  In  this  contingency  it  was  her  duty  to  let 
him  know  the  unhappy  news,  and  she  must  let  him 
know  at  once.  An  ordinary  woman  would  have  sent 
Tommy  round  with  the  telegram.  But  Clementina, 
accustomed  all  her  life  long  to  act  for  herself,  gave  no 
thought  to  this  possibility.  She  bolted  out  of  the  door 
of  the  hotel  and  made  her  way  back  to  the  tea-room. 

The  crowd  had  thinned,  but  Quixtus  and  his  friends 
still  lingered.  Mrs.  Fontaine,  her  elbows  on  the  table, 
leaning  her  cheek  against  her  daintily-gloved  hands, 
was  engaged  in  earnest  talk  with  him,  to  the  exclusion 
of  the  other  pair.  Lady  Louisa  Mailing  was  eating 
pastry  and  drinking  chocolate  with  an  air  of  great  en- 
joyment, while  Huckaby,  hands  in  pockets,  leant  back 
in  his  seat,  a  very  bored  Mephistopheles.  He  had  ex- 
hausted his  Martha's  conversation  long  ago,  and  he 
was  weary  of  the  eternal  companionship.  Why  should 
not  Faust  have  a  turn  at  Martha  now  and  again? 
Decidedly  it  was  an  unfair  world.  To  add,  also,  to 
his  present  discomfort,  the  confused  frame  of  mind  in 
which  he  had  originally  introduced  his  patron  to  Mrs. 
Fontaine  had  gradually  become  more  tangled.  Clean 
living  had  grown  more  to  his  taste,  abstinence  from 
whisky  much  more  simple  to  accomplish  than  his  most 
remorseful  dreams  of  reform  had  ever  conceived.  And 
that  morning  a  letter  from  Billiter  had  filled  him  with 
disgust.  Billiter  upbraided  him  for  silence,  wanted  to 
know  what  was  going  on,  hinted  that  a  dividend  ought 
to  be  due  by  this  time,  and  expressed,  none  too  deli- 
cately, a  suspicion  of  his  partner's  business  integrity. 
The  cheap  tavern-supplied  note-paper  offended  against 
the  nicety  of  Huckaby's  refined  surroundings.  The 
gross  vulgarity  of  Billiter  himself  revolted  him.  A 
week  had  passed  and  Mrs.  Fontaine  had  shown  no 
signs  of  having  accomplished  her  ends.  He  had  not 
dared  question  her.  He  had  begun,  too,  to  loathe  his 


izo8     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

part  in  the  sordid  plot.  But  that  morning  he  had 
summoned  up  courage  enough  to  say  to  Mrs.  Fon- 
taine : 

"  I've  just  had  a  letter  from  Billiter." 

Whereupon  her  pale  cheeks  had  flushed  red  and  her 
alluring  eyes  had  gleamed  dangerously. 

"  I  wish  to  God  I  had  never  seen  that  brute  in  all 
my  life!" 

And  he  had  said :  "  I  wish  to  God  I  had  never  done 
so,  either." 

She  had  looked  at  him  full,  searchingly,  inscrutably, 
for  a  long  moment  and,  saying  nothing,  had  turned 
away.  What  was  to  be  the  outcome  of  it  all?  Huck- 
aby  was  perplexed.  The  week  had  passed  pleasantly. 
Even  his  enforced  and  sardonic  attendance  on  Martha 
had  not  been  able  to  spoil  the  charm  of  the  new  life, 
bastard  though  it  was.  Mrs.  Fontaine  had  continued 
not  to  let  her  friends  in  Paris  know  of  her  presence 
in  the  city,  and  the  week  had  been  a  history  of  peace- 
ful jaunts — to  Chantilly,  Fontainebleati,  Sevres 
(where  Monsieur  Sardanel  had  spread  before  their 
ravished  eyes  his  collection  of  Mexican  rattles  and 
masks  and  obsidian-edged  swords)  ;  to  "  Robinson  " 
on  the  island  in  the  Seine,  where  they  had  lunched  in 
the  tree  restaurant;  in  a  word,  to  all  sorts  of  sweet 
summer  places  where  the  trees  were  green  and  the 
world  was  bathed  in  sunshine  and  innocence.  The 
week  had  evidently  passed  pleasantly  for  Quixtus,  who 
had  given  no  intimation  of  the  date  of  his  return  to 
London.  He  was  lotus  eating;  obviously,  too,  under 
the  charm  of  the  sorceress,  wax  in  her  hands.  Of  his 
fiendish  purpose  Huckaby  still  had  no  suspicion.  As 
far  as  Huckaby  could  see,  Mrs.  Fontaine  had  made  an 
easy  conquest  of  his  patron,  and  why  she  had  up  to 
now  forborne  to  carry  out  the  essential  part  of  the  plot 
he  could  not  understand.  Perhaps  she  loathed  the  idea 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     209 

as  much  as  he  did.  Her  outburst  against  Billiter  gave 
weight  to  the  theory.  It  was  all  very  complicated. 
And  here  were  these  two  engaged  in  a  deep  and  semi- 
sentimental  conversation  while  Lady  Louisa  stuffed 
herself  with  chocolate,  and  he,  Huckaby,  was  bored  to 
death.  What  was  going  to  happen  ? 

The  thing  that  did  happen  was  Clementina's  inrush. 
She  marched  straight  up  to  the  table,  and,  disregard- 
ing startled  eyes,  thrust  the  telegram  into  Quixtus's 
hand. 

"  Read  that.  You  may  find  one  like  it  at  your  hotel, 
or  you  may  not.  I  thought  it  right  to  bring  it." 

Mrs.  Fontaine  kept  her  elbows  on  the  table,  and  re- 
garded Clementina  with  well-bred  insolence.  Lady 
Louisa  finished  her  chocolate.  Quixtus  read  the  tele- 
gram and  his  face  grew  a  shade  paler  and  his  fingers 
trembled  a  little.  Huckaby  rose  and,  drawing  a  chair 
from  another  table,  offered  it  to  Clementina.  She 
waved  it  away,  with  a  curt  acknowledgment.  Quixtus 
looked  up  at  her. 

"  This  is  terrible — Will  Hammersley  dying " 

He  made  an  attempt  to  rise,  but  Clementina  put  her 
hand  on  his  shoulder. 

"  Don't  get  up.     I'm  going." 

A  sudden  hardening  change  came  over  Quixtus's 
features. 

"  Stay,"  said  he.  "  It  was  very  kind  of  you  to  bring 
this;  but  I'm  afraid  it  has  nothing  to  do  with  me." 

"  Nothing  to  do  with  you?  " 

She  regarded  him  in  amazement.  "  Your  lifelong 
friend  is  dying  and  implores  you  to  come  to  him,  and 
you  say  it's  nothing  to  do  with  you  ?  " 

"  He  was  a  villain,  a  base  villain,"  said  Quixtus, 
with  quivering  lips. 

"  Stuff  and  nonsense !  "  cried  Clementina  indig- 
nantly. 


210     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

Had  the  man  gone  absolutely  crazy  after  all? 

"  I  am  saying  what  I  know,"  he  returned  darkly. 
"  He  was  no  friend  to  me." 

"  And  he  wants  you  to  go  to  his  death-bed  ?  "  asked 
Mrs.  Fontaine,  taking  her  elbows  off  the  table.  "  How 
very  painful !  " 

"  You  had  better  put  such  lunatic  ideas  out  of  your 
head  and  take  the  night  train  to  Marseilles,"  said 
Clementina  roughly. 

Quixtus  bit  his  knuckles  and  stared  at  the  litter  of 
tea  in  front  of  him.  The  orchestra  for  their  last  num- 
ber played  a  common  little  jiggety  air. 

"  Are  you  coming  ?  "  asked  Clementina. 

"  Why  should  Dr.  Quixtus,"  said  Mrs.  Fontaine, 
"  travel  all  the  way  to  Marseilles  to  witness  the  death 
of  a  man  whom  he  dislikes  ?  I  think  it's  unreasonable 
to  ask  it." 

"  Yes,  yes,"  said  Quixtus.    "  It's  unreasonable." 

"  And  it  would  break  up  our  pleasant  little  party," 
pleaded  Lady  Louisa. 

"  Confound  your  party !  "  exclaimed  Clementina ; 
whereat  Lady  Louisa  withered  up  in  astonishment. 
"  I'm  telling  him  to  perform  an  act  of  humanity." 

"  He  was  my  enemy,"  said  Quixtus  in  a  low  voice. 

"  And  so  you  can  hardly  ask  him  to  go  and  gloat 
over  his  death,"  said  Lady  Louisa  stupidly. 

"  Eh?  What's  that?  "  cried  Quixtus,  straightening 
himself  up. 

"  We're  dealing  with  Christian  gentlemen,  not 
devils,"  Clementina  retorted. 

"  No,  not  devils — oh,  certainly  not  devils,"  said 
Quixtus  with  a  chuckling  catch  in  his  voice. 

Clementina  plucked  him  by  the  sleeve. 

"  I  can't  stand  here  all  the  afternoon  arguing  with 
you.  Even  if  you  have  got  it  into  your  head  that  the 
man  offended  you,  you  did  care  for  him  once,  and  it's 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     211 

only  common  charity  to  go  to  him  now  that  he's  at 
the  point  of  death.  Are  you  going  or  not?  " 

Quixtus  looked  helplessly  from  one  woman  to  the 
other. 

"  There's  such  a  thing  as  straining  quixotism  too 
far,  my  dear  Dr.  Quixtus,"  said  Mrs.  Fontaine.  "  I 
see  no  reason  why  you  should  go." 

"  I'm  a  decent  woman,  and  I  see  every  reason," 
said  Clementina,  infuriated  at  the  oth&r's  intervention. 
"  I'll  see  that  he  goes.  I'll  get  tickets  now  from  Cook's 
and  come  round  to  the  Continental  in  a  taxi  and  fetch 
you." 

Quixtus  rose  and  extended  his  hand  to  Clementina. 

"  I  shall  go.  I  promise  you,"  he  said  with  all  his 
courtliness  of  manner.  "  And  I  shall  not  trouble  you 
to  get  my  ticket  or  call  for  me.  Au  revoir." 

He  accompanied  her  to  the  door.  On  parting  he 
said  with  a  smile : 

"  I  have  my  reasons  for  going — reasons  that  no  one 
but  myself  can  understand." 

And  when  he  returned  to  Mrs.  Fontaine,  who  was 
biting  her  lips  with  annoyance  at  Clementina's  appar- 
ent victory,  he  repeated  the  words  with  the  same  smile 
and  the  curious  gleam  of  cunning  that  sometimes 
marred  the  blandness  of  his  eyes.  He  had  his  rea- 
sons. 

"  After  all,"  said  the  lady,  during  their  Faust  and 
Marguerite  walk  to  the  Hotel  Continental  entrance  in 
the  Rue  Castiglione,  "  I  can't  blame  you.  It's  an  er- 
rand of  mercy.  Doubtless  he  wishes  to  absolve  his 
conscience  from  the  wrong,  whatever  it  was,  that  he 
did  you.  Your  petroleuse  friend  was  right.  It  is  a 
noble  action." 

"  I  have  my  reasons,"  said  Quixtus. 

"  We  have  become  such  friends,"  she  said,  after  a 
little  pause,  "  at  least  I  hope  so,  that  I  shall  miss  you 


212     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

very  much.  I  have  very  few  friends,"  she  added  with  a 
sigh. 

"  If  I  am  one,  I  esteem  it  a  great  honour,"  said 
Quixtus. 

"  I  wonder  whether  you'll  care  to  see  me  when  you 
get  back  to  Paris." 

"Will  you  still  be  here?" 

"  If  you  promise  to  stay  a  little  while  and  finish  up 
our  holiday." 

He  met  her  upturned  alluring  eyes.  For  all  his  vis- 
ionary malignancy  he  was  a  man — and  a  man  who 
never  before  had  been  in  the  hands  of  the  seductress; 
an  unaccustomed  thrill  ran  through  him,  causing  him 
to  catch  his  breath. 

"  I  promise,"  said  he  huskily,  "  to  stay  here  as  long 
as  it  is  your  good  pleasure." 

"  Then  you  do  care  to  see  me?  " 

"  You  ought  to  know,"  said  the  infatuated  one. 

"  What  signs  have  you  given  me  ?  " 

"  Signs  that  every  woman  must  read." 

She  laughed.  "  Every  man  to  his  method.  I  like 
yours.  It's  neither  Cinquecento  nor  Louis  XV.  nor 
Directoire.  The  nearest  to  it  is  Jane  Austen.  But  it's 
really  Quixtine." 

Now  nothing  can  flatter  a  man  more  than  to  be  as- 
sured that  he  has  an  original  method  of  love-making. 
Quixtus  glowed  with  conscious  idiosyncrasy.  He  also 
felt  most  humanly  drawn  towards  the  flatterer. 

"  You  may  count  on  my  returning  to  you  at  the 
earliest  possible  moment,"  said  he.  "  May  I  be  com- 
monplace enough  to  remark  that  I  shall  count  the 
hours?" 

"  Everything  beautiful  on  the  earth,"  she  replied 
with  a  sweet  sentimentalism,  "  is  but  the  apotheosis  of 
the  commonplace." 

The  shrieking  siren  of  a  passing  motor-car  drowned 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     213 

this  last  remark.  He  begged  her  to  repeat  it  and 
bowed  his  ear  to  her  lips.  Her  breath  caught  his 
cheek  and  made  his  pulses  throb. 

"  I  have  a  plan,"  she  said,  as  they  entered  the  hotel. 
"  Why  shouldn't  we  have  a  little  dinner  to  ourselves  ? 
Your  train  doesn't  go  till  9.35.  I'm  learned  in  trains, 
you  see.  And  I'm  also  learned  in  Paris  restaurants." 

"  Nothing  could  be  more  delightful,"  said  Quixtus. 

It  was  only  when  he  found  himself  alone  in  his 
room  and  reflected  on  the  "  reasons  "  for  his  journey 
to  Marseilles  that  the  crazy  part  of  his  brain  summed 
up  his  amatory  situation.  He  laughed  sedately.  He 
held  the  woman's  heart  in  his  hands.  At  any  hour  he 
could  dash  it  on  the  pavement  of  Paris,  whereon  so 
many  hearts  of  women  had  been  broken.  At  any  hour 
could  he  work  this  great  wickedness.  But  not  to-night. 
To-night  he  would  take  the  heart  in  a  firmer  grip.  He 
would  dally  with  the  delicious  malignity.  Besides,  his 
fastidiousness  forbade  an  orgy  of  pleasure.  One  wick- 
edness at  a  time.  Was  he  not  bound  even  now  for 
Marseilles,  on  a  merciless  errand  ?  This  deed  of  dark- 
ness must  be  accomplished  swiftly.  The  other  could 
wait.  As  a  crown  to  his  contentment  came  the  reali- 
sation that  these,  his  supreme  projects  of  devildom,  lay 
hidden  in  his  own  heart,  secret  from  Huckaby  and  his 
fellow  minions.  They  were  futile  knaves,  all  of  them. 
Well,  perhaps  not  Huckaby.  Huckaby  had  more  than 
once  expressed  the  desire  to  reform.  .  .  . 

By  the  way,  what  should  be  done  with  Huckaby 
during  his  absence  in  Marseilles?  He  was  useless  in 
Paris.  Why  not  send  him  back  to  London  ? 

He  summoned  Huckaby  to  his  room,  and,  whilst 
packing,  laid  the  question  before  him. 

"  For  God's  sake  don't,"  said  Huckaby,  almost  in 
terror. 


2i4     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

"Why  shouldn't  I?" 

"  I  can't  go  back,"  said  he,  tugging  at  his  beard,  no 
longer  straggly,  but  neatly  cut  to  a  point.  "  I  can't  go 
back  to  it  all — to  the  squalour  and  drunkenness — it's 
no  use  mincing  words  with  you — I  can't  do  it.  You've 
set  me  on  the  clean  road,  and  you've  got  to  see  that  I 
keep  there.  You've  given  me  chances  in  the  past  and  I 
abused  them.  You  have  the  power  to  give  me  another 
— and  I  won't  abuse  it.  I  swear  I  won't.  To  kick  me 
back  again  would  be  hellish  wickedness." 

"  You're  quite  right,"  replied  Quixtus  gravely,  bal- 
ancing in  his  hand  an  ill-folded  pair  of  trousers  which 
he  was  about  to  put  into  his  suit-case.  "  I  appreciate 
your  position  perfectly.  But,  as  I  have  implied  to  you 
before,  in  a  similar  conversation,  hellish  wickedness  is 
what  I — what  I,  in  fact,  am  devoting  my  life  to  ac- 
complish." 

He  packed  the  trousers  and  walked  up  and  down  the 
room,  pondering  darkly.  It  was  a  tempting  piece  of 
villainy  to  kick  Huckaby  back  into  the  gutter.  In  a. 
flash  it  could  be  done.  But,  as  in  all  his  attempted 
acts  of  vileness,  the  co-ordination  between  brain  and 
will  failed  at  the  critical  moment.  A  new  aspect  of  the 
case  flashed  upon  his  disordered  mind,  showing  an 
even  more  diabolical  way  of  achieving  Huckaby's  ruin 
than  throwing  him  back  into  the  gutter.  By  a  curi- 
ous transmogrification,  it  was  he,  Quixtus,  who  now 
blazed  luridly  as  the  Master  of  Mischief,  and  Huckaby 
as  the  shrinking  innocent.  The  enforced  association 
of  the  shrinking  innocent  with  the  Master  of  Mischief 
could  have  no  other  result  than  the  constant  sapping 
of  the  victim's  volition  and  the  gradual  but  certain 
degradation  of  his  soul.  To  accomplish  this  was  a  re- 
finement of  deviltry  far  beyond  the  imagination  of  his 
favourite  fiend  Macathiel.  He  decided  promptly  and 
halted  in  front  of  his  former  myrmidon.  It  was  once 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     215 

more  necessary  for  him,  however,  like  the  villain  in  the 
old  melodrama,  to  dissemble.  He  smiled  and  laid  his 
hand  on  Huckaby's  shoulder. 

"  All  right,"  said  he,  in  the  old,  kind  voice  that  in 
the  past  had  so  often  stabbed  Huckaby's  conscience. 
"  I'll  give  you  the  chance.  Just  stick  loyally  to  me.  Stay 
with  the  ladies  in  Paris,  and  when  I  come  back  we 
can  talk  about  things." 

Huckaby  gripped  his  hand. 

"  Thank  you,  Quixtus.  I  wish  I  could  tell  you — 
I've  known  all  along — "  he  stammered  in  a  hoarse 
voice.  "  Oh,  I've  played  the  devil  with  everything — • 
and  I  don't  know  which  is  the  damneder  fool  of  us 
two." 

"  I  am  quite  certain,"  said  Quixtus  with  a  conscious 
smile,  which  he  assumed  was  Mephistophelian.  "  I  am 
quite  certain,  my  dear  Huckaby,  that  you  are." 

In  spite  of  the  exultation  that  he  felt  (or  deluded 
himself  into  feeling)  at  the  triple  wickedness  where- 
with he  purposed  to  burden  his  soul,  Quixtus  dined 
with  Mrs.  Fontaine  in  a  subdued  frame  of  mind.  It 
was  not  the  fault  of  the  dinner,  for  it  was  carefully 
selected  by  Mrs.  Fontaine,  who  smiled  pityingly  at 
Quixtus's  gastronomic  ignorance;  nor  was  it  that  of 
the  place,  a  cosy  little  restaurant  in  the  Passage  Jouf- 
f  roy ;  nor  that  of  the  lady,  who  appeared  bent  on  pleas- 
ing. Deep  down  in  his  soul  were  stirrings  of  pity 
which  his  clouded  brain  could  not  interpret.  Their  ef- 
fect, however,  was  a  mild  melancholy.  Mrs.  Fon- 
taine's trained  senses  quickly  noticed  it,  and  she  tuned 
her  talk  in  key.  She  prided  herself  on  being  a  sympa- 
thetic woman.  By  this  time  she  had  learned  to  dis- 
count his  pessimistic  utterances  which  she  knew  pro- 
ceeded from  the  same  psychological  source  as  the  luna- 
tic desire  to  break  a  woman's  heart  which  had  been  the 
inspiration  of  the  plot.  She  discerned  the  essential 


216     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

gentleness  of  the  man,  his  tender  impulses,  his  integral 
innocence,  and  established  him  in  her  own  eyes  as  a 
pathetic  spectacle.  As  to  the  heart-breaking,  she  felt 
secure.  It  was  the  only  element  of  humour  in  the 
ghastly  game,  which  day  by  day  had  grown  more  re- 
pulsive. 

It  was  in  this  chastened  mood  that  she  met  Huck- 
aby  on  their  return  to  the  Continental.  Quixtus  went 
up  to  his  room  by  the  lift,  and  left  them  standing  in 
the  lounge. 

"  I  can't  do  it,"  she  said  hurriedly.  "  Billiter  and 
the  whole  lot  of  you  can  go  to  the  devil.  I'm  out  of  it. 
With  a  man  who  can  take  care  of  himself,  yes.  I've 
no  compunction.  It's  a  fair  fight.  But  this  is  too  low 
down.  It's  like  robbing  a  blind  beggar.  It  revolts 
me.  Understand — this  is  the  end  of  it." 

"  Will  you  believe  me,"  said  Huckaby,  "  when  I  say 
that  it's  more  than  I  can  swallow,  either  ?  I'm  honest. 
I'm  out  of  it,  too.  Billiter  can  go  to  the  devil." 

She  looked  at  him,  as  she  had  done  before  that  day, 
long  and  searchingly,  and  her  hard  eyes  gradually 
softened. 

"  Yes,  I  believe  you." 

Huckaby  bowed.  "  I  thank  you,  Mrs.  Fontaine. 
And  as  we  are  on  this  painful  subject,  I  should  like 
to  be  frank  with  you.  You  know  how  this  thing 
started.  I  began  it  in  the  first  place  as  a  joke,  a  wild 
jest,  to  humour  him  in  his  madness.  The  idea  of 
Quixtus  breaking  a  woman's  heart  is  comic.  But — 
God  knows  how — it  developed  into  our — our  associa- 
tion. The  important  part  now  is  this — if  you  think 
you  have  been  fooling  him  to  the  top  of  his  bent, 
you're  mistaken.  When  it  came  to  the  point  of  begin- 
ning his  heart-breaking  career,  he  shied  at  it.  Told 
me  the  whole  thing  was  profoundly  distasteful  and 
I  must  never  mention  the  matter  again." 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     217 

"  Well,"  asked  Mrs.  Fontaine,  "  what  does  that 
mean  ?  " 

"  It  means,"  said  Huckaby,  "  that  you've  succeeded 
in  making  him  fond  of  your  society  for  its  own  sake." 

She  drew  a  deep  breath.  "  Thank  goodness,  this 
nightmare  of  a  farce  is  over." 

"  Now,  I  suppose  you'll  go  back  to  London,"  said 
Huckaby. 

She  looked  away  from  him,  unseeing,  down  the  long 
lounge,  and  her  gloved  hands  unconsciously  gripped 
each  other  hard;  her  bosom  heaved.  In  the  woman's 
dark  soul  strange  things  were  happening,  a  curious, 
desperate  hope  was  dawning.  She  remained  like  this 
for  a  few  moments  while  Huckaby,  unconscious  of 
tensity,  selected  and  lit  a  cigarette. 

"  No,  I  shan't  go  to  London,"  she  said  at  last,  with- 
out turning  her  head.  "  I'll  stay  in  Paris.  I  owe  my- 
self a  holiday." 

Ten  minutes  afterwards  Quixtus  had  gone.  They 
watched  the  wheels  of  the  taxi  that  was  carrying  him 
to  the  Lyons  station  disappear  beneath  the  great  arch- 
way, and,  writh  something  like  a  sigh,  they  returned 
slowly  to  the  lounge.  Lena  Fontaine  threw  herself  on 
a  seat,  her  hands  by  her  side,  in  an  attitude  of  weari- 
ness. 

"  Oh,  God,  I'm  tired,"  she  whispered. 

Huckaby  suggested  bed.  She  shrugged  her  shoul- 
ders. It  was  not  her  body  that  was  tired,  she  ex- 
plained, but  the  ridiculous  something  that  people  called 
a  soul.  That  was  dead  beat.  She  looked  up  at  him  as 
he  stood  before  her  wondering  to  hear  her  talk  so 
frankly. 

"  What  was  it  that  played  the  devil  with  you  ?  A 
woman?  " 

"  Drink,"  replied  Huckaby  laconically. 

"  I  hadn't  even  that  excuse,"  said  Lena  Fontaine. 


218     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

She  laughed  mirthlessly.  "  Don't  you  wish  you  were 
good?" 

He  sat  down  by  her  side. 

"  Why  shouldn't  we  try  to  be  ?  " 

"  Because  the  world  isn't  a  Sunday  School,  my  dear 
friend." 

Huckaby  ventured  to  touch  her  hand  with  the  tip 
of  his  finger. 

"  Let  us  try,"  said  he. 

She  smiled — this  time  only  in  half  derision. 

"  Let  us,"  she  said. 

A  great  silence  fell  upon  them,  and  they  sat  there 
side  by  side  for  a  long,  long  time,  pretending  to  watch, 
like  many  other  couples  and  groups  in  the  lounge,  the 
shifting  life  of  the  great  hotel,  but  really  far  away 
from  it  all,  feeling  drawn  together  in  their  new-found 
shame  like  two  dreary  souls  who  had  escaped  from 
Purgatory  and  were  wandering  through  darkness  they 
knew  not  whither. 


THE  great  train  thundered  on  straight  down 
through  the  heart  of  France.  Almost  the 
length  of  it  separated  Quixtus  and  Clemen- 
tina. They  had  seen  each  other  only  for  a  few  mo- 
ments amid  the  bustle  of  the  hurrying  platform — just 
long  enough  for  her  quick  vision  to  perceive,  in  the 
uncertain  blue  light  of  the  arc-lamps,  a  haunted  look 
in  his  eyes  that  was  absent  when  she  had  first  met  him 
that  afternoon.  He  had  spoken  a  few  courteous 
phrases;  he  had  inquired  whether  Tommy  and  Etta, 
who  clung  to  her  to  the  last,  were  to  be  fellow  travel- 
lers, whereon  Clementina  had  very  definitely  informed 
him  that  Etta  was  staying  with  friends  in  Paris,  while 
Tommy  had  arranged  to  visit  a  painter  chum  at  Bar- 
bizon;  he  had  expressed  the  hope  that  when  they  ar- 
rived at  Marseilles  she  would  command  his  services, 
and,  after  a  bare-headed  leave-taking  of  the  two  ladies, 
which  caused  Etta  afterwards  to  remark  that  it  was 
only  her  short  skirt  that  had  prevented  her  from  mak- 
ing her  court  curtsey,  he  had  gone  in  search  of  his 
own  compartment. 

Etta  had  flung  her  arms  round  Clementina's  neck. 

"  Oh,  Clementina  darling,  do  come  back  soon !  The 
Jacksons  are  kind,  but,  oh,  so  stuffy !  And  Tommy  is 
going  to  Barbizon,  and  I  shan't  see  him,  and  if  you 
don't  come  back  soon,  he'll  have  forogtten  all  about 
me." 

Tommy  had  given  her  a  great  hug  and  kissed  her. 
219 


220     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

"  Good-bye,  dear.  God  bless  you.  Come  back  soon. 
We  can't  do  without  you." 

And  Clementina,  pausing  on  the  first  step  of  the  rail- 
way carriage,  had  turned  and  raised  her  hand — the  un- 
filled finger-ends  of  her  cotton  gloves  projecting  com- 
ically— and  cried : 

"  Good-bye,  you  dear,  selfish,  detestable,  beloved 
children!" 

And  neither  of  the  twain  had  known  what  in  the 
world  she  meant. 

The  great  train  thundered  on  through  the  country 
which  Clementina  had  traversed  a  month  or  so  before 
with  Tommy — Dijon,  Macon,  Lyons.  .  .  .  Things 
had  changed  since  then.  Then  a  sweet  rejuvenescence 
had  crept  through  her  veins ;  then  she  had  amused  her- 
self with  the  idea  of  being  a  lady.  The  towns,  whose 
names  shouted  through  the  awful  stillness  of  the  sta- 
tions otherwise  only  broken  by  the  eerie  clank  of  the 
wheel-testers'  hammers  were  now  but  abstract  stages 
on  her  journey,  then  had  a  magical  significance.  .  .  . 
That  must  be  Vienne  through  which  they  were  dash- 
ing. ...  If  the  bitter-sweet,  the  tragi-comedy, 
the  cardiac  surgery  of  Vienne  had  not  brought  a  smile 
to  Clementina's  lips  in  the  dark  solitude  of  her  com- 
partment, would  she  have  been  the  sturdy,  humorous 
Clementina  who  had  cried  her  farewell  to  the  chil- 
dren? Things  had  changed  since  then,  she  assured 
herself.  She  was  just  Clementina  again,  fighting  her 
battles  alone,  impatient,  contemptuous,  unfeeling;  no 
longer  a  lady,  merely  a  female  dauber,  ready  once 
more  to  paint  elderly  magnates'  trousers  at  so  much 
per  leg.  .  .  .  She  sighed  and  laughed.  Those 
had  been  pleasant  times.  .  .  .  That  she  should  be 
going  over  the  same  ground  now  with  Quixtus  seemed 
a  freakish  trick  of  destiny. 

At  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning  the  train  entered 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     221 

Marseilles  Station.  Quixtus  came  speedily  up  to  Clem- 
entina as  she  stepped  onto  the  platform,  and  offered  his 
services.  He  trusted  she  had  slept  well  and  had  a 
comfortable  journey. 

"  Didn't  sleep  a  wink,"  said  Clementina.  "  Did 
you?" 

Quixtus  admitted  broken  slumbers.  The  strangeness 
of  die  adventure  had  kept  him  awake. 

;<  You're  looking  ill  this  morning,"  said  Clementina, 
glancing  at  him  sharply.  "  What's  the  matter  with 
you?" 

He  seemed  careworn,  feverish,  and  an  unnatural 
glitter  had  replaced  the  haunted  look  in  his  eyes. 
Clementina  did  not  know  how  the  approaching  con- 
summation of  a  deed  of  real  wickedness  terrified  the 
mild  and  gentle-natured  man.  Hitherto  his  evil  doings 
had  been  fantastic,  repaired  almost  at  once  as  if  me- 
chanically by  the  underlying  instinct  of  generosity;  his 
visions  of  sin  had  been  fantastic,  too,  harmless,  un- 
practical ;  but  this  sin  of  vengeance  which  he  had  in- 
tellectually conceived  and  fostered  loomed  great  and 
terrible.  So  does  the  braggart  who  has  sworn  to  eat 
up  a  lion  alive,  totter  at  the  knees  when  he  hears  the 
lion's  roar.  His  night  had  been  that  of  a  soul  on  fire. 

"  Something's  wrong.  What  is  it  ?  "  asked  Clemen- 
tina. 

He  answered  vaguely.  This  summons  had  upset  him. 
It  had  set  him  thinking,  a  tiring  mental  process.  He 
remembered,  said  he,  how  Hammersley,  when  they 
were  boys  together,  had  called  him  to  see  a  dying  but- 
terfly on  a  rose-bush.  The  yellow  wings  were  still 
flapping  languidly;  then  slower  and  slower;  then 
strength  gave  out  and  they  quivered  in  the  last  effort; 
and  then  the  hold  on  the  rose-bush  relaxed  and  the  but- 
terfly fell  to  the  earth — dead. 

"  What  does  Monsieur  wish  done  with  the  bag- 


222     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

gage  ?  "  asked  the  attendant  porter,  who  had  listened 
uncomprehendingly  to  the  long  and  tragical  tale. 

Quixtus  passed  his  hand  across  his  forehead  and 
looked  at  the  porter  as  if  awakening  out  of  a  dream. 

"  What  you  like,"  said  he. 

So  forlorn  and  hag-ridden  did  he  appear  that  a 
wave  of  pity  swept  through  Clementina.  The  deadly 
phrase  of  the  judge  in  the  Marrable  trial  occurred  to 
her :  "  Such  men  as  you  ought  not  to  be  allowed  to  go 
about  loose."  The  mothering  instinct  more  than  her 
natural  forcefulness  made  her  take  charge  of  the  situa- 
tion. 

"  The  omnibus  of  the  Hotel  du  Louvre,"  she  said  to 
the  man,  and  taking  Quixtus  by  the  arm,  she  led  him 
like  a  child  out  of  the  station. 

"  Get  in,"  she  said  with  rough  kindliness,  pushing 
him  towards  the  step  of  the  omnibus.  But  he  moved 
aside  for  her  to  precede  him.  Clementina  said  "  Rub- 
bish !  "  and  entered  the  vehicle.  She  was  no  longer 
playing  at  being  a  lady.  Quixtus  followed  her,  and 
the  omnibus  clattered  down  the  steep  streets  and  jolted 
and  swayed  through  the  traffic  and  between  the  myriad 
tramcars  that  deface  and  deafen  the  city.  The  morn- 
ing sun  shone  fiercely.  The  pavements  baked.  The 
sun-drenched  buildings  burned  hot  to  the  eye  and  the 
very  awnings  in  the  front  of  shops  and  over  stalls  in 
the  markets  suggested  heat  rather  than  coolness.  Far 
away  at  the  end  of  the  Cannebiere,  the  strip  of  sea 
visible  glittered  like  a  steel  blade. 

"  Whew !  "  gasped  Clementina,  "  what  heat !  " 

"  I  feel  it  rather  chilly,"  said  Quixtus. 

She  stared  at  him,  wiping  a  damp  forehead.  What 
was  the  matter  with  the  man? 

When  they  entered  the  fairly  cool  vestibule  of  the 
hotel,  the  manager  met  them  and  assigned  the  rooms. 
They  asked  for  Hammersley.  Alas,  said  the  man- 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     223 

ager,  he  was  very  ill.  The  doctor  was  with  him  even 
now.  An  elderly  man  in  thin,  sun-stained  tweeds,  who 
had  been  sitting  in  a  corner  playing  with  a  child  of 
five  or  six  in  charge  of  a  Chinese  nurse,  came  forward 
and  greeted  them. 

"  Are  you  the  friends  Mr.  Hammersley  telegraphed 
for?  Miss  Wing  and  Dr.  Quixtus?  My  name  is 
Poynter.  I  was  a  fellow-passenger  of  Mr.  Hammers- 
ley's  on  the  '  Moronia.'  He  was  a  sick  man  when  he 
started;  and  got  worse  on  the  voyage.  Impossible  to 
land  at  Brindisi.  Arrived  here,  he  could  go  no  further 
either  by  boat  or  train.  He  was  quite  helpless,  so  I 
stayed  on  till  his  friends  could  come.  It  was  I  who 
wrote  out  and  sent  the  telegrams." 

"  That  was  very  good  of  you,"  said  Clementina. 

Quixtus  bowed  vaguely,  but  spoke  not  a  word.  His 
lips  were  white.  He  held  the  front  edges  of  his  jacket 
crushed  in  a  nervous  grip.  Poynter's  voice  sounded 
far  away.  He  barely  grasped  the  meaning  of  his 
words.  A  dynamo  throbbed  in  his  head  instead  of  a 
brain. 

"Is  he  dying?"  asked  Clementina. 

Mr.  Poynter  made  an  expressive  gesture.  "  I'm 
afraid  so.  He  collapsed  during  the  night  and  they've 
been  giving  him  oxygen  this  morning.  Yesterday  he 
was  desperately  anxious  to  see  you  both." 

"Is  it  possible  or  judicious  to  go  to  him  now?" 
asked  Clementina. 

.  "  You  may  inquire.    If  you  will  allow  me,  I'll  show 
you  the  way  to  his  room." 

He  led  the  way  to  the  lift.  They  entered.  For 
Quixtus  his  companions  had  ceased  to  exist.  He  was 
conscious  only  of  going  to  the  dying  man,  and  the 
dynamo  throbbed,  throbbed.  During  the  ascent  Clem- 
entina said  abruptly  to  Poynter : 

"  How  long  is  it  since  you've  been  home  ?  " 


224     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

"  Twenty-five  years,"  he  replied  with  a  grim  smile. 
"  And  it  has  been  the  dream  of  my  life  for  ten." 

"  And  you've  stopped  off  in  this  Hades  of  a  place 
for  the  sake  of  a  sick  stranger?  You  must  be  a  good 
sort." 

"  You  would  have  done  the  same,"  said  Poynter. 

"  Not  I." 

He  smiled  again  and  looked  at  her  with  his  calm, 
certain  eyes.  "  A  man  does  not  live  in  the  far  Orient 
for  nothing.  I  know  you  would.  This  way,"  he  said, 
as  the  lift-door  opened.  He  led  them  down  a  corridor, 
Quixtus  following,  a  step  or  two  behind,  like  a  man  in 
a  trance. 

The  awful  moment  was  at  hand,  the  moment  which, 
in  the  tea-shop  and  in  the  hotel,  had  seemed  far,  far 
distant,  hidden  in  the  mists  of  some  unreal  devil-land ; 
which  at  dinner  had  begun  to  loom  through  the  mists ; 
which  all  night  long  had  seemed  to  grow  nearer  and 
nearer  with  every  rhythmic  thud  of  the  thundering 
train,  until,  at  times,  it  touched  him  like  some  material 
horror.  The  moment  was  at  hand.  At  last  he  was 
about  to  fulfil  his  destiny  of  evil.  His  enemy  lay  dy- 
ing, the  spirit  faintly  flapping  its  wings  like  the  butter- 
fly. In  a  moment  they  would  enter  a  room.  He  would 
behold  the  dying  man.  He  would  curse  him  and  send 
a  blackened,  anguished  soul  into  eternity. 

The  dynamo  in  his  brain  and  the  beating  of  his 
heart  made  him  fancy  that  they  were  walking  to  the 
sound  of  muffled  drums.  Nearer,  nearer.  This  was 
real,  actual.  He  was  a  devil  walking  to  the  sound  of 
muffled  drums. 

Poynter  and  Clementina  stopped  before  a  door. 
Quixtus  stood  still,  shaking  all  over,  like  a  horse  in 
front  of  a  nameless  terror. 

"  This  is  his  room,"  said  Poynter,  grasping  the 
handle. 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     225 

Quixtus  gave  a  queer  cry  and  suddenly  threw  him- 
self forward  and  clutched  Poynter's  arm  convulsively, 
his  features  distorted  with  terror. 

"  Wait — wait !  I  can't  do  it !  I  can't  do  it !  It's 
monstrous ! " 

He  leaned  up  against  the  wall  and  closed  his  eyes. 

"  Overwrought  nerves,"  whispered  Poynter. 

There  happened  to  be  a  bench  near  by,  placed  for 
the  convenience  of  the  chambermaid  of  the  floor.  Clem- 
entina made  him  sit  down. 

"  I  don't  think  you're  quite  up  to  seeing  him  just 
now,"  she  said. 

He  shook  his  head.  "  No.  Not  just  now.  I  feel 
faint.  It's  death.  I'm  not  used  to  death.  You  go  in. 
Give  him  my  love.  I'll  see  him  later.  But  give  him 
my  love." 

"Very  well,"  said  Clementina. 

She  rapped  gently  at  the  door.  It  was  opened  and 
a  sister  of  charity  in  a  great  white  coif  appeared  on 
the  threshold. 

She  looked  at  the  visitors  sadly. 

"  C'est  fini,"  she  whispered. 

Quixtus  staggered  to  his  feet. 

"Dead?" 

"  Oui,  Monsieur." 

The  sweat  broke  out  in  great  drops  on  his  forehead. 

"  Dead !  "  he  repeated. 
,  "  Vous  pouvez  entrer  si  z'ons  voules,"  said  the  sister. 

Then  Quixtus  reeled  as  if  some  one  had  dealt  him 
a  crushing  blow.  Poynter  saved  him  from  falling  and 
guided  him  to  the  seat.  For  a  long,  long  second  all 
was  darkness.  The  dynamo  stopped  suddenly.  Then, 
as  had  happened  once  before,  a  little  thread  seemed  to 
snap  in  his  brain.  He  opened  his  eyes  feeling  sick  and 
giddy.  The  sister  quickly  disappeared  into  the  room, 
and  returned  with  some  brandy.  The  others  stood 


226     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

anxiously  by.  Presently  the  spirits  took  effect  and  en- 
abled him  to  co-ordinate  his  faculties.  With  an  effort 
of  will  he  rose  and  straightened  himself. 

"  I  am  better  now.    Let  us  go  in." 

"  Wiser  not,"  said  Clementina,  a  thousand  miles 
from  suspecting  the  psychological  phenomenon  that 
had  occurred. 

Quixtus  slightly  raised  a  protesting  hand. 

"  I  assure  you  there  is  no  reason  why  I  should  not 
go  in,"  he  said  in  a  shaky  voice. 

"  All  right,"  said  Clementina.  "  But  you  can't  go 
tumbling  all  over  the  place." 

Once  more  she  took  his  arm  in  her  strong  grip,  and, 
leaving  Poynter  outside,  they  entered  the  death-cham- 
ber together.  The  windows  were  flung  wide,  but  the 
outside  shutters  were  closed,  darkening  the  room  and 
cooling  it  from  the  baking  sun.  A  man  in  a  frock  coat 
and  narrow  black  tie — the  doctor — was  aiding  his  as- 
sistant in  the  repacking  of  the  oxygen  apparatus.  On 
the  bed,  gaunt,  hollow-cheeked,  and  pinched,  lay  all  that 
was  left  of  Hammersley.  Only  his  blonde  hair  and 
beard,  with  scarcely  a  touch  of  grey,  remained  of  that 
which  was  familiar.  The  laughing  eyes  which  had 
charmed  men  and  women  were  hidden  forever  beneath 
the  lids.  Clementina's  hand  crept  half -mechanically 
downwards  and  clasped  that  of  Quixtus,  which  re- 
turned the  pressure.  So  hand  in  hand  they  stood,  in 
silence,  by  the  death-bed. 

At  last  Clementina  whispered : 

"  Whatever  may  have  been  the  misunderstanding 
between  you,  all  is  over  now.  May  his  sins  be  for- 
given him." 

"  Amen,"  said  Quixtus. 

Tears  rolled  down  Clementina's  cheeks  and  fell  on 
her  bodice.  The  dead  man  had  belonged  to  her  youth 
• — the  dreary  youth  that  had  taken  itself  for  grim,  grey 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     227 

eld.  He  had  brought  into  it  a  little  laughter,  a  little 
buoyancy,  much  strength,  much  comfort!  all,  so  sim- 
ply, so  kindly.  At  first,  in  her  fierce  mood  of  revolt, 
she  had  rebuffed  him  and  scorned  his  friendship.  But 
he  was  one  of  the  gifted  ones  who  could  divine  a 
woman's  needs  and  minister  to  them;  so  he  smiled  at 
her  rejection  of  his  offerings,  knowing  that  she  craved 
them,  and  presented  them  again  and  again  until  at  last, 
worn  out  with  longing,  she  clutched  at  them  frantically 
and  hugged  them  to  her  bosom.  A  generous  gentle- 
man, a  loyal  friend,  a  very  help  in  time  of  trouble,  he 
lay  there  dead  before  her  in  the  prime  of  his  manhood. 
She  let  the  tears  fall  unchecked,  until  they  blinded  her. 

A  dry,  queer  voice  broke  a  long  silence,  whispering 
in  her  ear : 

"  I  told  you  to  give  him  my  love,  didn't  I  ?  " 

She  nodded  and  squeezed  Quixtus's  hand. 

The  doctor  stood  by  waiting  till  their  scrutiny  of  the 
dead  should  be  over.  Clementina  was  the  first  to  turn 
to  him  and  to  ask  for  information  as  to  the  death.  In 
a  few  words  the  doctor  told  her.  When  she  entered 
the  room  he  had  been  dead  five  minutes. 

"  Who,  Madame,  you  or  this  gentleman,  is  respon- 
sible for  what  remains  to  be  done  ?  " 

'c  I  am.    Don't  you  think  so,  Ephraim?  " 

Quixtus  bowed  his  head. 

"  I  sent  him  my  love,"  he  murmured. 

"And  now,"  said  the  Sister  of  Charity,  "we  must 
make  the  toilette  du  mart.  Will  you  have  the  kindness 
to  retire?" 

She  smiled  sadly  and  opened  the  door. 

"  There  is  a  packet  in  the  drawer  for  this  lady  and 
gentleman,"  said  Poynter,  who  had  stood  waiting  for 
them  in  the  corridor. 

"Ah!  ton,"  said  the  Sister.  She  crossed  the  room 
and  returned  with  the  packet,  which  she  handed  to 


Clementina.  It  was  sealed  and  addressed  to  them 
jointly.  "  To  Ephraim  Quixtus  and  Clementina  Wing. 
To  be  opened  after  my  death."  Clementina  stuffed 
it  in  the  pocket  of  her  skirt. 

"  We'll  open  it  together  by-and-by.  Now  we'd  bet- 
ter go  to  our  rooms  and  tidy  up  and  have  some  food. 
Only  a  fool  goes  through  such  a  day  as  is  before  us  on 
an  empty  stomach.  What's  your  number?  I'll  tell 
them  to  send  you  up  some  coffee  and  rolls." 

He  thanked  her  dreamily.  She  arranged  a  meeting 
at  noon  in  order  to  go  through  the  packet.  They 
walked  along  the  corridor,  Poynter  accompanying 
them.  He  proposed,  it  being  convenient  to  them,  to 
take  the  night  train  to  Paris  and  home.  In  the  mean- 
while his  services  were  at  their  disposal. 

"  I  wish  I  could  pack  you  off  to  Piccadilly  by 
Hertzian  wave,  right  away,"  said  Clementina. 

"  It's  Devonshire  I'm  longing  for,"  said  he. 

They  arrived  at  the  lift  door. 

'  You'll  love  it  all  the  better  for  having  played  the 
Angel  in  Hades,"  said  Clementina  with  moist  eyes 
"  Good-bye  for  the  present." 

She  extended  her  hand.  He  took  it,  held  it  in  a 
hesitating  way.  An  expression  of  puzzledom  came 
over  his  tanned,  lined  features. 

"  Are  you  going  to  your  room  now  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  Clementina. 

"  Pardon  my  presumption,"  said  he,  "  but — but 
aren't  you  going  to  see  the  child  ?  " 

"  Child  ?  "  cried  Clementina.    "  What  child  ?  " 

"  Why — Mr.  Hammersley's — didn't  you  know  ? 
She's  here " 

"Here?" 

"  When  you  came  into  the  vestibule,  didn't  you  no- 
tice a  little  girl  I  was  playing  with— rand  a  Chinese 
nurse " 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     229 

"  Lord  have  mercy  upon  us !  "  exclaimed  Clemen- 
tina. "  Do  you  hear  that,  Ephraim?  " 

"  Yes,  I  hear,"  said  Quixtus  tonelessly.  The  con- 
flict within  him  between  Mithra  and  Ahriman  had  left 
him  weak  and  non-recipient  of  hew  impressions. 
"  Hammersley  has  a  little  daughter.  I  wasn't  aware  of 
it.  I  wonder  how  he  got  her.  She  must  have  a  mother 
somewhere." 

"  The  mother's  dead,"  said  Poynter.  "  From  what 
I  could  gather  from  Hammersley,  the  child  has  no  kith 
or  kin  in  the  world.  That  was  why  he  was  so  desper- 
ately anxious  for  you  to  come." 

Clementina  peered  at  him  with  screwed-up  monkey 
face,  as  if  he  were  sitting  for  his  portrait. 

"  It's  the  most  amazing  thing  I've  ever  heard  in  my 
life!"  She  clapped  her  hand  to  her  pocket.  "And 
this  sealed  envelope?  Do  you  know  anything  about 
it?" 

"  I  do,"  said  Poynter.  "  It  contains  a  letter  and  a 
will.  I  wrote  them  both  at  his  dictation  ten  days  ago. 
The  will  is  a  properly  attested  document  appoint- 
ing Dr.  Quixtus  and  yourself  his  executors  and  joint 
trustees  of  the  little  girl.  A  dear  little  girl," 
he  added,  with  a  touch  of  wistfulness.  "  You'll  love 
her." 

"  God  grant  it !  "  cried  Clementina  fervently.  "  But 
what  an  old  maid  like  me  and  an  old  bachelor  like  him 
are  going  to  do  with  a  child  between  us,  the  Lord  Al- 
mighty alone  knows." 

Yet,  as  she  spoke,  the  picture  of  the  child — in  spite 
of  her  preoccupation  on  entering  the  hotel,  her  sharp 
vision  had  noted  the  fairy  fragility  of  the  English 
scrap  contrasting  with  the  picturesque  materialism  of 
the  fat  Chinese  nurse — the  picture  of  the  child  en- 
throned on  cushions  (a  feminine  setting !)  in  the  studio 
in  Romney  Place,  flashed  with  acute  distinctness  be- 


230     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

fore  her  mind,  and  some  foolish  thing  within  her  leapt 
and  stabbed  her  with  a  delicious  pain. 

Quixtus  brushed  his  thinning  hair  from  his  fore- 
head. 

"  I  understand,"  said  he  faintly.  "  I  understand 
that  I  am  a  trustee  for  Hammersley's  daughter.  I 
wasn't  expecting  it.  I  hope  you'll  not  think  it  dis- 
courteous if  I  leave  you?  I'm  not  quite  myself  to-day. 
I'll  go  and  rest." 

He  entered  the  lift  which  had  been  standing  open 
for  some  time.  There  is  not  a  feverish  hurry  in  Mar- 
seilles hotels  between  steamers  in  June.  Clementina 
with  a  gesture  checked  the  lift-boy.  The  man  must  be 
looked  after  at  once.  She  turned  to  Poynter. 

"  Like  a  dear  good  soul,"  she  said,  in  her  frank 
way,  "  go  down  and  prepare  the  child  for  such  a  rough- 
and-tumble  stepmother  as  me.  I'll  be  with  you  in  a 
few  minutes.  What's  your  number,  Ephraim  ?  "  He 
showed  her  the  ticket.  "  Two  hundred  and  seventy?  " 

"  Au  troisieme,  Madame." 

The  lift  gate  clicked.  They  mounted  a  couple  of 
floors.  The  chambermaid  of  the  etagc  showed  them 
into  number  two  hundred  and  seventy.  Then  Clemen- 
tina took  command.  In  less  than  two  minutes  win- 
dows were  opened  and  shutters  adjusted,  the  waiter 
was  despatched  for  coffee,  the  valet  was  unpacking  and 
arranging  Quixtus's  personal  belongings,  and  the 
chambermaid  spreading  the  bed  invitingly  open.  When 
Clementina  was  a  lady,  she  behaved  in  the  most  self- 
effacing  and  early  Victorian  ladylike  way  in  the  world. 
But  when  she  was  Clementina  and  wanted  to  do  things, 
she  would  have  ordered  the  devil  about  like  a  common 
lackey,  and  boxed  the  ears  of  any  archangel  who  ven- 
tured to  interfere  with  her. 

Quixtus,  unprepared  for  this  whirlwind  ministration 
on  the  part  of  Clementina,  whom  he  had  hitherto  re- 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     231 

garded  rather  as  an  antagonistic  principle  than  as  a 
sympathetic  woman,  sat  bolt  upright  on  the  edge  of  the 
sofa  and  looked  on  with  an  air  of  mystification.  Yet, 
feeling  weak  and  broken,  he  was  content  to  let  her  tend 
him. 

"  Take  off  your  clothes  and  go  to  bed,"  said  Clemen- 
tina, standing,  hands  on  hips,  in  front  of  him.  "  For 
two  pins  I'd  undress  you  myself  and  put  you  to  sleep 
like  a  baby." 

A  wan  smile  flickered  over  his  features. 

"  I'm  very  grateful  to  you  for  your  kindness.  Per- 
haps a  little  rest  will  bring  mental  adjustment.  That's 
what  I  think  I  need — mental  adjustment." 

He  repeated  the  words  several  times,  and  sat  staring 
in  front  of  him. 

On  the  threshold  Clementina  turned  and  crossed  the 
room  again. 

"  Ephraim,"  she  said,  "  I  think  if  you  and  I  had 
been  better  friends  all  these  years  there  wouldn't  have 
been  so  much  of  this  adjusting  necessary.  It  has  been 
my  fault.  I'm  sorry.  But  now  that  we  have  a  child 
to  bring  up,  I'll  look  after  you.  You  poor  man,"  she 
added,  touching  his  arm  very  kindly  and  feeling  ridicu- 
lously sentimental.  "  You  must  be  the  loneliest  thing 
that  ever  happened."  She  caught  up  his  suit  of  py- 
jamas and  threw  them  by  his  side  on  the  sofa.  "  Now, 
for  God's  sake,  stick  on  these  things  and  go  to  bed." 

Downstairs,  in  the  vestibule,  she  found  Poynter  with 
the  little  girl  on  his  knees.  The  Chinese  nurse  sat  like 
a  good-tempered  idol  a  few  feet  away. 

"  This  is  your  new  auntie,"  said  Poynter,  as  Clem- 
entina approached. 

The  child  slipped  from  his  knees  and  looked  up  at 
her  with  timorous  earnestness.  She  was  fair,  with  the 
transparent  pallor  of  most  children  born  and  bred  in 
the  East,  a  creature  of  delicate  fragility  and  grace. 


232     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

Clementina  saw  that  she  had  her  father's  frank  hazel 
eyes.  The  child  held  out  her  hand. 

"  Good  morning,  auntie,"  she  said  in  a  curiously 
sweet  contralto. 

Clementina  took  the  seat  vacated  by  Poynter,  and 
drew  the  child  towards  her. 

"  Won't  you  give  me  a  kiss?  " 

"  Of  course." 

She  put  up  her  little  lips.  The  appeal  to  the  woman 
was  irresistible.  She  caught  the  child  to  her  and 
clasped  her  to  her  bosom,  and  kissed  her  and  said 
foolish  things.  When  her  embrace  relaxed  as  abruptly 
as  it  had  begun,  the  child  said : 

"  I  like  that.    Do  that  again." 

"  Bless  you,  my  darling,  I  could  do  it  all  day  long," 
cried  Clementina. 

She  held  the  child  with  one  arm,  the  little  face  pil- 
lowed on  her  bosom,  and  with  her  free  hand  groped 
in  her  pocket  for  her  handkerchief.  This  found,  she 
blew  her  nose  loudly  and  glanced  at  Poynter  who  was 
surveying  the  pair  with  his  grave,  wise  smile. 

"  I'm  sure  you  don't  mind  if  I  make  a  fool  of  my- 
self," she  said.  "  And  I'm  sure  I  don't." 


CHAPTER  XVII 

FOR  as  much  of  the  day  as  she  could  spare  from 
the  miserable  formalities  and  arrangements  at- 
tendant on  the  death  of  a  human  being,  Clem- 
entina made  a  fool  of  herself  over  the  child.  It  was 
a  feminine  scrap  hungering  for  love,  kitten-like  in  its 
demand  for  caresses.  Contentedly  nestling  in  Clemen- 
tina's arms,  she  related,  piecemeal,  her  tiny  history. 
Her  name  was  Sheila,  and  she  loved  her  father,  who 
was  very  ill.  So  ill  that  she  had  only  been  able  to  see 
him  once  since  they  had  come  off  the  ship.  That  was 
yesterday,  and  she  had  been  frightened,  for  he  said 
that  he  was  going  to  mummy.  Now  mummy  had 
gone  to  heaven,  and  when  people  go  to  heaven  you 
never  see  them  again.  With  a  pang  Clementina  asked 
her  if  she  remembered  when  her  mummy  went  to 
heaven.  Oh,  yes.  It  was  ever  so  long  ago — when 
she  was  quite  little.  Daddy  cried,  cried,  cried.  She, 
too,  would  cry  if  daddy  were  to  go  to  heaven.  .  .  . 
Clementina  thought  it  best  to  wait  and  accustom  the 
child  both  to  the  idea  of  the  eternal  parting  and  to 
herself  before  breaking  the  disastrous  news.  But  her 
heart  was  wrung.  Sometimes  Sheila  revolted  and 
clamoured  to  see  him;  but  on  the  whole  she  showed 
herself  to  be  reasonable  and  docile.  She  hugged  to 
her  side  a  shapeless  and  very  dirty  white  plush  cat, 
her  inseparable  companion.  .  .  .  They  had  lived 
in  a  big  house  in  Shanghai,  with  lots  of  servants ;  but 
her  father  had  sold  it  and  sold  all  the  furniture,  and 
they  were  going  to  live  in  England  for  ever  and  ever. 

233 


234     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

England  was  a  place  all  full  of  green  trees  and  grass 
and  cows  and  flowers.  Did  Clementina  know  Eng- 
land? 

"  Suppose  daddy  goes  to  heaven,  would  you  like  to 
come  and  live  with  me  ?  "  asked  Clementina. 

Sheila  replied  seriously  that  she  would  sooner  live 
with  her  than  with  Na.  Na  was  a  new  Na.  Her  old 
Na  was  in  Shanghai.  Her  husband  wouldn't  let  her 
come  to  England.  Only  Clementina  would  have  to 
cuddle  her  to  sleep  every  night,  like  her  daddy.  Na 
didn't  cuddle  her  to  sleep.  She  thought  she  didn't 
know  how.  Daddy,  she  repeated  like  a  young  parrot, 
had  said  that  was  the  worst  of  getting  a  nurse  who 
had  never  had  children  of  her  own.  They  were  so 
darned  helpless.  Clementina  winced;  but  she  put  her 
arm  round  the  child  again. 

"  You're  not  afraid  of  my  not  being  able  to  cuddle 
you,  Sheila  ?  " 

"  Oh,  you — you  cuddle  lovely,"  murmured  Sheila. 

Who  was  her  mother?  Clementina  had  no  notion. 
Hammersley  had  never  announced  the  fact  of  his  mar- 
riage. The  last  time  she  had  seen  him  was  six  years 
ago.  The  child  gave  herself  out  to  be  five  and  a  half. 
Hammersley  must  have  married  just  before  leaving 
England.  He  had  breathed  not  a  word  to  anybody. 
But  so  had  Will  Hammersley  acted  all  his  life.  He 
was  one  who  gave  and  never  sought;  a  man  who  re- 
ceived the  confidence  of  all  who  knew  him,  and  kept 
the  secrets  both  of  joy  and  sorrow  of  his  own  life 
hidden  behind  his  smiling  eyes. 

One  of  the  secrets — the  dainty  secret  that  lay  in  her 
arms — was  out  now;  a  fact  in  flesh  and  blood.  And 
for  the  guidance  of  this  sensitive  wisp  of  humanity 
to  womanhood  she,  Clementina,  and  Ephraim  Quixtus 
were  jointly  responsible.  It  was  a  Puckish  destiny 
that  had  brought  their  lives  to  this  point  of  conver- 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     235 

gence.  With  the  dead  man  lying  cold  and  stark  up- 
stairs, the  humour  of  it  appeared  too  grim  for  smiles. 
She  wished  that  the  quiet,  capable  man  of  wise  under- 
standing and  unselfish  heart,  who  had  missed  the  ex- 
press train  at  Brindisi  that  would  have  sped  him 
swiftly  to  his  longed-for  Devonshire,  and  had  come  on 
to  Marseilles  with  the  sick  stranger,  had  been  ap- 
pointed her  coadjutor.  Poynter  could  have  helped  her 
mightily  with  his  kindly  wisdom  and  his  knowledge  of 
the  hearts  and  the  ways  of  men,  as  he  was  helping  her 
that  day  in  the  performance  of  the  dreary  duties  to  the 
dead.  But  Quixtus !  He  was  as  much  of  a  child  as 
the  one  confided  to  his  care.  Anxious,  however,  that 
Sheila  should  be  prepossessed  in  his  favour,  she  drew 
a  flattering  picture  of  the  new  uncle  that  would  shortly 
come  into  her  life. 

"Is  he  your  husband?"  asked  Sheila. 

"  Good  Lord,  no !  "  cried  Clementina,  aghast  at  the 
grotesque  suggestion.  "  Whatever  put  that  in  your 
head,  child?" 

It  appeared  that  Dora  Smith,  one  of  her  little 
friends  in  Shanghai,  had  an  uncle  and  aunt  who  were 
married.  She  thought  all  uncles  and  aunts  were  mar- 
ried. 

"  Do  you  think  he'll  like  my  frock?  "  asked  Sheila. 

The  vanity  of  the  feminine  thing!  Clementina 
laughed  for  the  first  time  that  dismal  day. 

"  Do  you  think  he'll  like  mine  ?  " 

Sheila  looked  critically  at  the  soiled,  ill-fitting  blouse, 
and  the  rusty  old  brown  skirt,  and  reddened.  She 
paused  for  a  moment. 

"  I'm  sure  hell  say  that  he  does,"  she  replied  se- 
dately. 

Clementina  caught  a  whimsical  gleam  in  Poynter's 
eye. 

"  Oriental  diplomacy !  "  she  remarked. 


236     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

He  shook  his  head.    "  You're  wrong.     Go  deeper." 

Clementina  flushed  and  stroked  the  child's  fair  hair. 

"  I'm  afraid  I've  got  to  learn  a  lot  of  things." 

"  In  the  most  exquisite  school  in  the  world,"  said 
Poynter. 

Quixtus  came  downstairs  about  four  o'clock,  pale 
and  shaky,  and  found  Clementina  in  the  dark  and 
stuffy  writing-room  of  the  hotel.  She  had  petted  the 
child  to  her  afternoon  sleep,  about  half  an  hour  before, 
and  had  left  her  in  the  joint  care  of  the  Chinese  nurse 
and  the  dirty  white  plush  cat  tightly  clasped  to  her 
breast.  She  had  just  finished  a  letter  to  Tommy. 
Either  through  the  fault  of  the  deeply  encrusted  hotel 
pen,  or  by  force  of  painting  habit,  a  smear  of  violet 
ink  ran  a  comet's  course  across  her  cheek.  She  had 
written  to  Tommy: 

"If  you  don't  want  to  know  what  has  happened,  you 
ought  to.  I  find  my  poor  friend  dead  on  my  arrival. 
Elysian  fields  for  him,  which  I'm  sure  are  not  as  beau- 
tiful as  the  English  lanes  his  soul  longed  for.  To  my 
amazement  he  has  left  a  fairy  child  to  the  joint  guar- 
dianship of  your  uncle  and  myself.  Your  uncle's  a  sick 
man,  and  needs  looking  after.  What  I'm  going  to  do 
with  all  you  helpless  chickens,  when  I  ought  to  be 
painting  trousers^  God  alone  knows.  I  once  was  an 
artist.  Now  I'm  a  hen.  Yours,  Clementina." 

She  had  also  written  to  Etta  in  similar  strain,  and  at 
the  same  inordinate  length,  and  was  addressing  the 
envelope  when  Quixtus  entered  the  room. 

She  wheeled  round. 

"Better?" 

"  Thank  you,"  said  he.  "  Though  I'm  ashamed  of 
myself  for  sleeping  all  this  time." 

"  Jolty  good  thing  you  did  go  to  sleep,"  replied 
Clementina.  "  It  has  probably  saved  you  from  a 
breakdown.  You  were  on  the  verge  of  one." 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     237 

"  Can  I  help  you  with  any  of  the  unhappy  arrange- 
ments that  have  to  be  made  in  these  circumstances  ?  " 

"  Made  'em,"  said  Clementina.    "  Sit  down." 

Quixtus  obeyed  meekly.  He  wore  an  air  of  great 
lassitude,  like  a  man  who  has  just  risen  from  a  bed  of 
sickness.  He  passed  his  hands  over  his  eyes : 

"  There  was  a  sealed  packet,  if  I  remember  rightly, 
and  a  child.  I  think  we  might  see  now  what  the 
packet  contains." 

"  Are  you  fit  to  read  it  ?  "  she  asked.  He  smiled 
vaguely,  for  her  tone  softened  the  abruptness  of  the 
question. 

"  I  am  anxious  to  do  so,"  he  replied. 

Clementina  opened  the  envelope  and  drew  out  the 
two  documents,  the  letter  and  the  will,  and  read  them 
aloud.  Neither  added  greatly  to  the  information 
given  by  Poynter.  Hammersley  charged  them  as 
his  two  oldest,  most  loved  and  trusted  friends,  to 
regard  themselves  as  the  parents  and  guardians  of  his 
orphaned  child,  to  whom  he  bequeathed  a  small 
but  comfortable  fortune,  to  be  administered  by  them 
jointly  in  trust,  until  she  should  marry  or  reach  the 
age  of  twenty-five  years.  No  mention  being  made  of 
the  dead  wife,  her  identity  still  remained  a  mystery. 
Like  Clementina,  Quixtus  had  not  heard  of  his 
marriage,  could  think  of  no  woman  whom,  six 
years  ago,  while  he  was  in  England,  he  could  have 
married. 

But  six  years  ago.  .  .  . !  Quixtus  buried  his  face 
in  his  hands  and  shuddered.  Had  the  man  been  false 
to  every  one — even  to  the  wife  of  the  friend  he  had 
betrayed  ? 

Suddenly  he  rose  with  a  great  cry  and  a  passionate 
gesture  of  both  arms. 

"  I  am  lost !  I  am  lost !  I  am  floundering  in 
quicksands.  The  meaning  of  the  earth  has  gone 


238     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

from  me.  I'm  in  a  land  of  grotesques — shapes  that 
mop  and  mow  at  me  and  have  no  reality.  The  things 
they  do  the  human  brain  can't  conceive.  They 
have  been  driving  me  mad,  mad !  "  he  cried,  beating 
his  head  with  his  knuckles ;  "  and  yet  I  am  sane  now. 
Did  you  ever  know  what  it  was  to  be  so  sane  that  your 
;  soul  was  tortured  with  sanity?  Oh,  my  God !  " 
/  He  walked  about  the  room  quivering  from  the  out- 
burst. Clementina  regarded  him  with  amazed  in- 
terest. This  was  a  new,  undreamed  of  Quixtus,  a 
human  creature  that  had  passed  through  torment. 

"  Tell  me  what  is  on  your  mind,"  she  said  quietly. 
"  It  might  ease  it." 

"  No,"  he  said,  halting  before  her.  "  Not  to  my 
dying  day.  There  are  things  one  must  keep  within 
oneself  till  they  eat  away  one's  vitals.  I  wish  I  had 
never  come  here." 

"  You  came  here  on  an  errand  of  mercy,  and  as  far 
as  you  were  concerned  you  performed  it." 

"  I  came  here  with  hate  in  my  heart,  I  tell  you. 
I  came  here  on  an  errand  of  evil.  And  outside  the 
door  of  his  room  my  purpose  failed  me — and  I  sent 
him  my  love.  And  then  I  went  in  and  saw  him — 
dead." 

"  And  you  forgave  him,"  said  Clementina. 

"  No ;  I  prayed  that  God  would." 

He  turned  away.  Clementina  rose  from  her  chair 
by  the  writing-table  and  followed  him. 

"  What  was  between  you  and  Will  Hammersley  ?  " 

For  an  instant  he  had  an  impulse  to  tell  her,  she 
looked  so  strong,  so  honest.  But  he  checked  it. 
Confidence  was  impossible.  The  shame  of  the  dead 
must  be  buried  with  the  dead.  He  pointed  to  the 
documents  lying  on  the  table. 

"  He  thought  I  never  knew.  I  never  knew,"  said 
he. 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     239 

"  I  give  it  up,"  said  Clementina. 

A  memory  smote  him.  He  bent  his  brows  upon  her. 
His  eyes  were  sad  and  clear. 

"  You  have  no  inkling  of  the  matter?  " 

"  None  in  the  least.  Good  Lord !  "  she  broke  out 
impatiently,  "  if  I  had,  do  you  suppose  I'd  be  cross- 
questioning  you?  I'd  be  trying  to  help  you,  as  I 
want  to  do." 

He  threw  himself  wearily  into  a  chair  and  leant 
his  head  on  his  hand. 

"  I've  had  queer  experiences  of  late,"  he  said. 
"  I've  learned  to  trust  nobody.  How  can  I  tell  that 
you're  sincere  in  saying  you  want  to  help  me?  " 

Clementina  puckered  up  her  face. 

"  What's  that?  Here  am  I,  who  have  been  abusing 
you  all  your  life,  now  doing  violence  to  my  traditions 
and  saying  let  us  kiss  and  be  friends — just  at  the 
very  moment  when  you  want  friends  more  than 
you  ever  did  in  your  born  days — and  you  ask  me 
if  I'm  sincere!  Lord  in  heaven!  Did  you  ever 
know  me  to  be  even  decently  polite  to  creatures  I 
didn't  care  about  ?  " 

Clementina  was  indignant.  The  faint  shadow  of  a 
smile  passed  across  Quixtus's  face. 

"  You've  not  always  been  polite  to  me,  Clementina. 
This  change  to  solicitude  is  surprising.  Timeo  Danaos 
et  dona  ferentes.  Which  means " 

"  Do  you  suppose  you're  the  only  person  who  knows 
tags  out  of  the  Latin  grammar  ?  "  she  snapped.  Then 
she  laughed  in  her  dry  way.  "  Don't  let  us  begin  to 
quarrel.  We've  got  a  child,  you  and  I.  I  hope  you 
realise  that.  If  we  were  its  real  father  and  mother 
we  might  quarrel  with  impunity.  As  we're  not,  we 
can't.  What  are  we  going  to  do  ?  " 

Quixtus  thought  deeply  for  a  long  time.  His 
sensitive  nature  shrank  from  the  duty  imposed.  If 


240 

he  accepted  it  he  would  be  the  dead  man's  dupe  to 
the  end  of  the  chapter. 

"  You  have  seen  the  little  girl  ? "  he  inquired  at 
last. 

"  Yes.    Been  with  her  most  of  the  day." 

"Do  you  like  her?" 

She  regarded  him  with  whimsical  pity. 

"  Oh  yes,  I  like  her,"  she  said. 

"Then  why  not  keep  her  to  yourself?  I  am  not 
bound  by  Hammersley's  wishes.  All  I  have  to  do  is 
to  decline  to  act  either  as  executor  or  trustee." 

Clementina's  heart  leaped  in  the  most  unregenerate 
manner.  To  have  Sheila  all  to  herself,  without  let 
or  hindrance  from  her  impossible  co-trustee  !  She 
was  staggered  by  the  sudden,  swif temptation  which 
struck  at  the  roots  of  her  unfulfilled  womanhood.  For 
a  while  she  dallied  with  it  deliciously. 

"  If  it's  agreeable  to  you,  I'll  decline  to  act,"  said 
Quixtus,  after  the  spell  of  silence. 

Clementina  strangled  the  serpent  in  a  flash  and  cast 
it  from  her.  To  purchase  happiness  at  the  price  of 
human  infirmity?  No.  She  would  play  squarely 
with  life.  Feminine  instinct  told  her  that  the  care 
of  the  child  was  needful  for  this  weary  man's  salvation. 
She  attacked  him  with  more  roughness  than  she  in- 
tended— the  eddy  of  her  own  struggle. 

"  What  right  have  you  to  shirk  your  responsibilities  ? 
That's  what  you've  always  done — and  see  where  it 
has  landed  you.  I'm  not  going  to  be  a  party  to  it. 
It's  pure  and  simple  cowardice,  and  I  have  no  patience 
with  it." 

"  Perhaps  I  deserve  your  reproaches,"  said  Quixtus 
mildly.  "  But  the  present  circumstances  are  so 
painful " 

"  Painful !  "  she  interrupted.  "  Lord  above,  man, 
what  does  it  matter  whether  they're  painful  or  not? 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     241 

Do  you  suppose  I've  gone  through  six  and  thirty 
years  without  pain?  I've  had  awful  pain,  hellish 
pain,  as  much  pain  as  a  woman  and  an  artist  and  a 
scarecrow  can  suffer.  That's  new  to  you,  isn't  it? 
But  you've  never  seen  me  making  a  hullabaloo  about 
it.  We've  got  to  bear  pain  in  the  world,  and  the  more 
we  grin,  the  better  we  bear  it,  and — what  is  a  precious 
sight  more  useful — the  more  we  help  others  to  bear 
it.  Who  are  you,  Ephraim  Quixtus,  that  you  should 
be  exempt  from  pain  ?  " 

She  turned  to  the  yellow  packet  of  "  Maryland  " 
on  the  marble  mantlepiece  and  rolled  a  cigarette. 
Quixtus  said  nothing,  but  sat  tugging  at  his  scrubby 
moustache. 

"  That  child,"  she  said — and  she  paused  to  lick  the 
cigarette — "  That  child  of  five  is  doomed  to  pain. 
Some  of  it  all  the  love  in  the  world  can't  prevent. 
It's  a  law  of  life.  But  some  it  can.  That's  another 
law  of  life,  thank  God.  By  taking  pain  upon  us,  we 
can  also  save  others  pain.  That's  another  law.  I 
suppose  we  have  to  thank  Jesus  Christ  for  that.  And 
fate  has  put  this  tender  thing  into  our  hands  to  save  it, 
if  possible,  from  the  pain  that  both  you  and  I  have 
endured.  To  reject  the  privilege  is  the  act  of  a  cow- 
ardly devil,  not  of  a  man." 

As  she  stood  there  in  her  slatternly  blouse  and 
tousled  hair,  brandishing  the  wetted  cigarette  between 
nicotine  stained  fingers,  yet  enunciating  as  she  had 
seldom  condescended  to  do  to  a  fellow  creature 
her  ruggedly  tender  philosophy  of  life,  she  looked 
almost  beautiful  in  the  eyes  of  the  man  who  had 
awakened  from  a  nightmare  into  the  sober  greyness 
of  an  actual  dawn. 

She  lit  the  cigarette  with  fingers  unwontedly 
trembling,  and  feverishly  drew  in  the  first  few  puffs. 

"  Well?    What  are  you  going  to  do?  " 


242     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

Quixtus  breathed  hard,  with  parted  lips,  and  stared 
at  the  future.  It  is  difficult,  after  a  nightmare 
madness,  to  adjust  the  mind  to  the  sane  outlook.  But 
she  had  moved  him  to  the  depths — the  depths  that 
through  all  his  madness  had  remained  untroubled. 

"  You  are  right,  Clementina,"  he  said  at  last,  in 
a  low  voice.  "  I  will  share  with  you  this  great  re- 
sponsibility." 

She  blew  out  a  puff  of  smoke ;  "  I  don't  think 
it  ought  to  turn  our  hair  white,  anyhow,"  she  said, 
sitting-  on  the  arm  of  the  sofa.  "  The  child's  past 
teething,  so  we  shan't  have  to  sit  up  at  nights  over 
*  Advice  to  Mothers/  and  our  common  sense  will 
tell  us  not  to  fill  her  up  every  day  with  pate  de  foie 
gras.  When  she's  ill  we'll  send  for  a  doctor,  and  when 
we  want  to  do  business  we'll  send  for  a  lawyer.  It 
strikes  me,  Ephraim,  that  having  another  interest  in 
life  besides  dead  men's  jawbones,  will  do  you  a  thun- 
dering lot  of  good." 

"  Would  you  like  something  to  do  me  good  ?  "  he 
asked,  with  a  touch  of  wistful  banter. 

Clementina,  as  she  afterwards  confessed,  felt  herself 
to  be  on  such  a  sky-high  plane  of  self-abnegation  and 
altruism,  that  she  thrust  down,  figuratively  speaking, 
angelic  arms  towards  him.  Really,  the  mothering 
instinct  again  clamoured.  She  threw  her  half-smoked 
cigarette  away  and  came  and,  standing  over  him, 
clutched  his  shoulder. 

"  My  good  Ephraim,"  she  said,  "  I  would  give  any- 
thing to  see  you  a  happy  human  being." 

Then,  in  her  abrupt  fashion,  she  sent  him  out  to 
take  the  air.  That  also  would  do  him  good.  She 
thrust  his  hat  and  stick  in  his  hand. 

"  What  are  you  going  -to  do,  Clementina  ? "  he 
asked. 

"  A  thousand  things.     First  I  must  go  upstairs  and 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     243 

see  whether  the  child's  awake.  I  hate  trusting  her 
with  that  heathen  imbecile." 

"  Au  revoir,  then,"  said  Quixtus,  moving  away. 

"  Come  back  in  good  time  to  make  the  child's  ac- 
quaintance," she  shouted  after  him. 

He  paused  on  the  threshold  and  looked  at  her  irreso- 
lutely. He  had  a  nervous  dread  of  meeting  the  child. 

He  walked  through  the  sun-filled  streets,  down  the 
Cannebiere,  absently  watched  the  baking  quays, 
and  then,  returning1  to  the  main  thoroughfare,  sat 
down  beneath  the  awning  of  a  cafe.  An  hour  passed. 
It  was  time  to  go  back  and  see  his  ward.  He  shrank 
morbidly  from  the  ordeal.  With  a  great  effort  he  rose 
at  last  and  walked  to  the  hotel. 

Clementina,  Poynter,  and  the  child  were  in  the  vesti- 
bule, the  two  elders  seated  in  the  wickerwork  chairs, 
the  little  one  squatting  on  the  ground  at  their  feet 
and  playing  with  the  mongrel  and  somewhat  super* 
cilious  dog  of  the  hotel.  Quixtus  halted  in  front 
of  the  group.  The  child  lifted  her  flower-like  face  to 
the  new-comer. 

"  Is  this "  he  began. 

"  This  is  Sheila,"  said  Clementina.  "  Get  up,  dear, 
and  say  how  d'ye  do  to  your  new  uncle." 

She  held  out  her  hand  with  shy  politeness — he 
looked  so  long  and  gaunt,  and  towered  over  her  tiny 
self. 

"How  do  you  do,  uncle — uncle ?"  she  turned 

to  Clementina. 

"  Ephraim,"  she  prompted. 

"  Uncle  Ephraim." 

"  No  wonder  the  poor  innocent  doesn't  remember 
such  a  name,"  said  Clementina. 

He  bent  and  solemnly  wagged  the  soft  hand  for  some 
time;  then,  not  knowing  what  to  do  with  it,  he  let 
it  go. 


244     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

"  Do  you  know  Bimbo  ?  " 

"  No,"  said  Quixtus. 

"  Bimbo — patte." 

The  mongrel  lifted  his  paw. 

'*  You  must  shake  hands  with  him  and  then  you 
will  know  him,"  she  said  seriously. 

Quixtus,  with  a  grave  face,  bent  lower  and  shook 
hands  with  the  dog. 

"  And  Pinkie." 

She  lifted  the  dirty  white  plush  cat.  In  an  embar- 
rassed way  he  wagged  a  stumpy  fore-foot. 

Sheila  turned  to  Clementina.  "  Now  he  knows 
everybody." 

Clementina  kissed  her  and  rose  from  her  seat, 
Poynter  rising  also. 

"  You'll  be  a  good  girl  if  I  leave  you  with  Uncle 
Ephraim  for  a  while  ?  " 

"  My  dear  Clementina !  "  cried  Quixtus  aghast. 
"  What  do  you  mean  ?  " 

A  gleam  of  kind  malice  flickered  in  her  eyes. 

"  I  find  I  must  have  some  air,  in  my  turn — and 
some  absinthe  which  Mr.  Poynter  has  promised  to 
give  me.  Au  revoir!  I  shan't  be  long,  Sheila  dear." 

She  moved  with  Poynter  towards  the  door. 

"  But,  Clementina " 

"  If  she  bites  you've  only  to  call  that  lump  of 
Celestial  idiocy  over  there,"  pointing  to  the  fat  Chinese 
nurse  who  sat  smiling  in  her  dark  corner.  "  You're 
protected.  And,  by  the  way,"  she  added  in  a  whisper, 
"  She  doesn't  know  her  father's  dead  yet.  Leave  it  to 
me  to  break  the  news." 

She  was  gone.  Quixtus  sank,  a  perspiring  em- 
barrassment, into  one  of  the  wicker  chairs.  A  scurvy 
trick,  he  thought,  of  Clementina  to  leave  him  in 
this  appalling  situation.  Yet  shame  prevented  flight. 
He  sat  there  bending  his  mild,  china-blue  eyes  on 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     245 

Sheila,  who  had  returned  unconcernedly  to  Bimbo, 
putting  him  through  his  tricks.  He  gave  his  paw 
and  sat  up  on  end,  and  while  doing  so  yawned  in  a 
bored  fashion.  During  this  latter  posture  Sheila 
sat-  up  on  her  little  haunches  and  held  her  hands  in 
front  of  her  and  yawned  in  imitation.  Then  she  set 
Pinkie  on  end  facing  the  dog.  Lastly  she  looked  up 
at  her  new  uncle. 

"  You  do  that  too.    Then  we'll  all  be  doing  it." 

"  God  bless  my  soul,"  said  the  startled  man.  "  I — 
I  can't." 

"Why  not?" 

"  I'm  too  old." 

She  seemed,  for  the  moment,  satisfied  with  the  rea- 
son and  resumed  her  game  with  Bimbo.  After  the 
yawn  he  grinned  with  doggy  fatuity,  and  his  red  long 
tongue  lolled  from  the  corner  of  his  mouth.  Sheila 
stuck  out  her  little  red  tongue,  in  droll  mimicry. 

"  Don't  wag  your  tail,  Bimbo.  It  isn't  fair,  because 
I've  got  no  tail.  Why  haven't  I  a  tail,  Uncle  Eph — 
Eph — Uncle  Ephim  ?  " 

"  Because  you're  a  little  girl  and  not  a  dog." 

At  that  moment  the  plush  cat,  insecurely  balanced, 
toppled  over. 

"  God  bless  my  soul,"  cried  the  little  parrot,  "  you're 
too  old,  Pinkie." 

"  Sheila,"  said  Quixtus,  realising  in  a  frightened 
way  his  responsibility.  "  Come  here." 

With  perfect  docility,  she  rose,  and  laid  a  hand  on 
his  knee.  Bimbo,  perceiving  himself  liberated  from 
the  boredom  of  mountebank  duty,  twisted  himself 
up  and  snarled  comfortably  at  fleas  in  the  middle  of  his 
back. 

"  You  mustn't  say  '  God  bless  my  soul,'  my 
dear." 

"Why  not?    You  said  it." 


246     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA' 

There  are  instinctive  answers  in  grown-ups,  just  as 
instinctive  questions  in  children. 

"  Old  people  can  say  things  that  little  girls  mustn't 
— just  as  old  people  can  sit  up  later  than  little  girls." 

She  regarded  him  with  frank  seriousness. 

"  I  know.  Daddy  says  '  damn,'  but  I  mustn't. 
I  never  say  it.  Pinkie  said  it  once,  and  I  put  her  in 
a  dark,  dark  hole  for  twenty  million  years.  It  wasn't 
really  twenty  millions  years,  you  know — it  was  only 
ten  minutes — but  Pinkie  thought  it  was." 

"  She  must  have  been  very  frightened,"  said 
Quixtus,  involuntarily — and  the  echo  of  the  words 
after  passing  his  lips  sounded  strange  in  his  ears. 

"  She  got  quite  white,"  said  Sheila.  She  picked 
up  the  shapeless  animal.  "  She  never  recovered. 
Look!" 

"  She  also  lost  one  side  of  her  whiskers,"  said 
Quixtus,  inspecting  the  beast  held  within  two  inches 
of  his  nose. 

"  Oh  no,"  she  replied,  getting  in  the  most  entangling 
way  between  his  legs.  "  Pinkie's  a  fairy  princess, 
and  one  day  she'll  have  a  crown  and  a  pink  dress  and 
a  gold  sword.  It's  a  wicked  fairy  that  keeps  her  like 
a  cat.  And  it  was  the  wicked  fairy  in  the  shape  of  a 
big  rat,  bigger  than  twenty  million,  billion,  billion 
houses,  that  bit  off  her  whiskers.  Daddy  told  me." 

Quixtus  could  not  follow  these  transcendental 
flights  of  faerie.  But  he  had  to  make  some  reply, 
as  she  was  looking  with  straight  challenge  into  his 
eyes.  To  his  astonishment,  he  found  himself  express- 
ing the  hope  that,  when  Pinkie  came  into  her  own 
again,  the  loss  of  one  set  of  whiskers  would  not  impair 
her  beauty.  Sheila  explained  that  princesses  didn't 
have  whiskers,  so  no  harm  was  done.  The  bad  fairy 
in  the  form  of  a  rat  wanted  to  bite  off  Pinkie's  nose, 
in  which  case  her  beauty  would  have  been  ruined; 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     247 

but  Pinkie  was  protected  by  a  good  fairy,  and  just 
when  the  bad  fairy  was  going-  to  bite  off  her  nose, 
the  good  fairy  shook  a  pepper  pot  and  the  bad  fairy 
sneezed  and  was  only  able  to  bite  off  the  whiskers. 

"  That  was  very  fortunate  for  Pinkie,"  said  Quixtus. 

"  Very,"  said  Sheila.  She  stood  against  him  on 
one  leg,  swinging  the  other.  Conversation  came  to 
a  standstill.  The  man  found  himself  tongue-tied. 
All  kinds  of  idiotic  remarks  came  into  his  head.  He 
dismissed  them  as  not  being  suitable  to  the  compre- 
hension of  a  child  of  five.  His  fingers  mechanically 
twisted  themselves  in  her  soft  hair.  Presently  came 
the  eternal  command  of  childhood. 

"  Tell  me  a  story." 

"Good  gracious!"  said  he,  "I'm  afraid  I  don't 
know  any." 

"  You  must  know  little  Red  Riding-Hood,"  she  said, 
with  a  touch  of  scorn. 

"  Perhaps  I  do.  I  wonder,"  said  Quixtus.  He 
clutched  eagerly  at  a  straw.  "  But  what's  the  use 
of  my  telling  it  to  you  if  you  know  it  already?  " 

She  ran  and  picked  up  the  sprawling  cat  and  calmly 
established  herself  on  his  knees.  Bimbo,  neglected, 
uttered  a  whining  growl,  and  curling  himself  up 
with  his  chin  by  his  tail,  dropped  into  a  morose 
slumber. 

"  Tell  it  to  Pinkie.  She's  stupid  and  always  forgets 
the  stories.  Now  begin." 

Quixtus  hummed  and  ha'd  and  at  last  plunged 
desperately.  "  There  was  once  a  wolf  who  ate  up 
Red  Riding-Hood's  grandmother." 

"  That's  not  it,"  cried  Sheila.  "  There  was  once 
a  sweet  little  girl  who  lived  with  her  grandmother. 
That's  the  proper  way." 

Quixtus  floundered.  Let  any  one  who  has  never 
told  a  tale  to  a  child  and  has  never  heard  of  Red 


248     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

Riding-Hood  for  at  least  five-and-thirty  years,  try  to 
recount  her  tragical  history.  Quixtus  had  to  tell  it 
to  an  expert  in  the  legend,  a  fearsome  undertaking. 
At  last,  with  her  aid  he  stumbled  through.  Pinkie, 
staring  at  him  through  her  bead  eyes,  evidently 
couldn't  make  head  or  tail  of  it.  Being  punched  in 
the  midriff  by  her  young  protectress,  she  emitted  a 
wheezy  squeak. 

"  Pinkie  says  '  thank  you,' '  Sheila  remarked 
politely. 

"  And  what  do  you  say  ?  "  asked  the  blundering 
elder. 

Now  what  had  been  good  enough  to  merit  Pinkie's 
thanks  had  not  been  good  enough  to  merit  hers. 
Besides,  such  as  it  was,  she  had  told  half  the  story. 
With  delicate  diplomacy  she  had  handled  a  difficult 
situation.  Her  eyes  filled  with  tears. 

"  Good  God !  "  murmured  Quixtus  in  terror.  "  She 
is  going  to  cry.  What  on  earth  can  I  do  ?  " 

His  wits  worked  quickly.  He  remembered  a  recent 
sitting  in  the  Folk-lore  section  of  the  Anthropological 
Congress. 

"  I  suppose,  my  dear,  a  story  current  among  the 
aborigines  of  Papua  wouldn't  interest  you  ?  " 

Her  eyes  dried  magically.  She  snuggled  up  against 
him. 

"  Tell  me." 

So  Quixtus  began  a  story  about  serpents  and  tigers 
and  shiny  copper-coloured  children,  and  knowing  the 
facts  of  the  folk  tale,  gradually  grew  interested  and 
unconsciously  discovered  a  new  talent  for  picturesque 
narration.  One  story  led  to  another.  He  forgot 
himself  and  his  wrongs,  and  pathetically  strove  to 
interest  his  audience  and  explain  to  her  childish  mind 
the  significance  of  tribal  mysteries  which  were  woven 
into  the  texture  of  the  tales.  The  explanation  left  her 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     249 

comparatively  cold;  but  so  long  as  there  were  tigers 
whose  blood-curdling  ferocity  she  adored,  she  found 
the  story  entrancing. 

"  There !  "  said  he,  laughing,  when  he  had  come  to 
an  end.  "  What  do  you  think  of  that  ?  " 

"  It's  booful,"  she  cried,  and  clambering  on  to  both 
knees  on  his  lap,  she  put  both  hands  on  his  shoulders 
and  held  up  her  mouth  for  a  kiss. 

In  this  touching  attitude  Clementina  and  Poynter 
discovered  them.  The  new-comers  exchanged  a  whim- 
sical glance  of  intelligence. 

"  Wise  woman,"  Poynter  murmured. 

"  Obvious  to  any  fool,"  she  retorted — and  advanced 
further  into  the  vestibule.  "  Feeling  decidedly  better?  " 

Quixtus  blushed  in  confusion.  Sheila  clambered 
down  from  her  perch  and  ran  to  Clementina. 

"  Oh,  Auntie,  Uncle  Ephim  has  been  telling  me 
such  lovely  stories." 

"  Lord  save  us !  " — she  turned  on  him — "  What  do 
you  know  about  stories  ?  " 

"  They  were  tribal  legends  of  Papua,"  he  confessed) 
modestly. 

"  And  what  else  have  you  been  doing?  " 

Quixtus  made  one  of  his  old-world  bows. 

"  I've  been  falling  in  love." 

"  You're  getting  on,"  said  Clementina. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

LET  us  take  the  case  of  a  refined  and  sensitive  man 
who  has  fallen,  as  many  have  fallen,  under  the 
influence  of  drink.  Let  us  suppose  him  to  have 
sunk  lower  and  lower  into  the  hell  of  it  until  delirium 
tremens  puts  a  temporary  end  to  his  excesses.  Let  us 
suppose  him  to  be  convalescent,  in  sweet  surroundings, 
in  capable  hands,  relieved,  for  the  time  at  least,  by  the 
strange  gold  drug  of  his  craving  for  alcohol.  His  mind 
is  clear,  his  perceptions  are  acute,  he  is  once  more  a 
sane  human  being.  He  looks  back  upon  his  degrada- 
tion with  wondering  horror.  It  is  not  as  though 
he  has  passed  through  a  period  of  dark  madness  of 
which  the  memory  is  vague  and  elusive.  He 
remembers  it  all — all  the  incidents,  all  the  besotted 
acts,  all  the  benumbed,  enslaved  surrender  of  his 
soul.  His  freed  self  regards  perplexedly  the  self  that 
was  in  bondage.  They  are  two  different  entities — 
and  yet  they  are  unquestionably  the  same.  He  has 
not  been  mad,  because  he  has  felt  all  the  time  respon- 
sible for  his  actions,  and  yet  he  must  have  been  mad 
so  to  dishonour  the  divine  spirit  within  him.  The 
latter  argument  prevails.  "  I  have  been  mad,"  he  says, 
and  shivers  with  disgust. 

In  some  such  puzzled  frame  of  mind  did  Quixtus, 
freed  from  the  obsession  of  the  Idea,  regard  his  self 
of  the  last  few  months.  He  remembered  how  it  had 
happened.  There  had  been  several  shocks;  the 
Marrable  disaster,  the  discovery  of  Angela  and 
Hammersley's  betrayal,  that  of  the  disloyalty  of  his 

250 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     251 

three  pensioners,  the  cynical  trick  of  his  uncle.  He 
remembered  toying  with  the  Idea  on  his  homeward 
journey,  the  farcical  faithlessness  of  the  drunken 
housekeeper — and  then,  click  !  the  hag  Idea  had 
mounted  on  his  shoulders  and  ridden  away  with  him, 
as  Al  Kohol  (the  very  devil  himself)  rides  away  with 
the  unresisting  drunkard.  Every  action,  every  thought 
of  this  strange  period  were  clear  in  his  memory.  He 
could  not  have  been  mad — and  yet  he  must  have 
been. 

To  strain  the  analogy  a  trifle,  the  nightmare  in  the 
train  and  the  horror  of  the  morning  had  been  his  de- 
lirium tremens.  But  here  the  analogy  suffers  a  solu- 
tion of  continuity.  From  that  climax  of  devil  work, 
the  drunkard  descends  but  slowly  and  gradually 
through  tortures  innumerable  to  the  normal  life  of 
man.  Shock  is  ineffective.  But  in  Quixtus's  case  there 
was  a  double  shock — the  seismic  convulsion  of  his 
being  at  the  climactic  moment,  and  the  sudden  an- 
nouncement of  that,  which  to  all  men  born  is  the  only 
Absolute,  final,  immutable. 

And  then  click!  the  hag  that  had  ridden  him  had 
been  thrown  from  his  shoulders,  and  he  had  looked 
upon  the  dead  through  the  eyes  of  a  sane  man.  And 
now,  through  the  eyes  of  a  sane  man  he  regarded 
the  incredible  spectacle  of  his  self  of  yesterday.  He 
turned  from  it  with  shivers  of  disgust.  He  must  have 
been  mad.  A  great  depression  came  upon  him.  He 
had  suffered  grievous  wrongs,  it  is  true  ;  no  man 
since  Job  had  been  more  sorely  afflicted;  the  revela- 
tions of  human  baseness  and  treachery  had  been 
such  as  to  kill  his  once  child-like  faith  in  humanity. 
But  why  had  loss  of  faith  sent  him  mad?  What  had 
his  brain  been  doing  to  allow  this  grotesque  impulse 
to  over-master  it  ?  At  the  present  moment,  he  assured 
himself,  he  had  neither  more  nor  less  faith  in  mankind 


252     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

than  when  he  had  walked  a  maniac  through  the  Lon- 
don streets,  or  during  last  night's  tortured  journey  in 
the  train.  Yet  now  he  desired  to  permit  no  wicked- 
ness. The  thought  of  evil  for  evil's  sake  was  revolt- 
ing. .  .  .  The  self  that  he  had  striven  to  respect 
and  keep  clean  all  his  life,  had  been  soiled.  Wherein 
lay  purification? 

Had  he  been  mad  ?  If  so,  how  could  he  trust  his 
memory  as  to  what  had  happened  ?  By  the  grace  of 
God  those  acts  of  wickedness  whose  contemplation  he 
remembered,  had  been  rendered  nugatory.  Even 
Tommy  had  not  materially  suffered,  seeing  that  he 
had  kept  the  will  intact  and  had  placed  two  thousand 
pounds  to  his  banking  account.  But  could  he  actually 
have  committed  deeds  of  wickedness  which  he  had 
forgotten  ?  Were  there  any  such  which  he  had  com- 
mitted through  the  agency  of  the  three  evil  counsel- 
lors ?  He  racked  his  memory  in  vain. 

The  time  at  Marseilles  passed  gloomily.  Poynter, 
the  good  Samaritan,  started  the  first  evening  for 
Devonshire  to  satisfy  his  hungry  soul  with  the  unutter- 
able comfort  of  English  fields.  Clementina  and 
Ouixtus  saw  him  off  at  the  station  and  walked  back 
through  the  sultry  streets  together.  The  next  day 
he  was  left  much  to  his  own  company,  as  Clementina 
broke  the  news  of  the  death  to  the  child  and  stayed  with 
her  for  comfort.  He  wandered  aimlessly  about  the 
town,  seeking  the  shade,  and  wrapping  himself  in  his 
melancholy.  When  he  saw  Sheila  in  the  afternoon 
she  was  greatly  subdued.  She  understood  that  her 
father  had  gone  to  Heaven  to  stay  with  her  mother. 
She  realised  that  she  would  never  see  him  again. 
Clementina  briefly  informed  Quixtus  of  the  child's 
grief.  How  she  had  cried  and  called  for  him  most  of 
the  morning,  how  she  had  fallen  asleep  and  had  awak- 
ened more  calm.  To  distract  her  mind  and  to  give 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA    253 

her  the  air,  they  hired  a  taxi-cab  and  drove  on  the 
Corniche  Road  past  the  Restaurant  de  la  Reserve. 
Sheila's  tiny  body  easily  nestled  on  the  seat  between 
them,  and  she  seemed  comforted  by  the  human  con- 
tact. From  Pinkie  she  also  derived  great  consolation. 
Pinkie  was  stupid,  she  explained,  and  she  couldn't 
talk;  but  really  she  was  a  fairy  princess,  and  fairy 
princesses  were  always  affectionate.  Pinkie  was 
stuffed  with  love  as  tight  as  she  could  hold. 

"  Have  you  ever  been  in  a  motor-car  before  ? " 
asked  Quixtus. 

"  Oh  yes.  Of  course  I  have,"  she  replied  in  her 
rich  little  voice.  "  Daddy  had  one  in  Shanghai.  He 
used  to  take  me  out  in  it." 

Then  her  lips  quivered  and  the  tears  started  and  she 
flung  herself  weeping  against  Clementina. 

"  Oh,  daddy  !      I  want  my  daddy  !  " 

The  essential  feminine  in  Clementina  sprang  to  arms. 

"  Why  did  you  start  her  off  like  this  by  talking  of 
motor-cars  ?  " 

"  I'm  dreadfully  sorry,"  said  Quixtus.  "  But  how 
was  I  to  know  ?  " 

"  Just  like  a  man,"  she  retorted.  "  No  intuition 
worth  a  cent." 

At  dinner,  a  melancholy  meal — theirs  was  the  only 
table  occupied  in  the  vast,  ghostly  salle  a  manger — she 
apologised,  in  her  gruff  way. 

"  I  was  wrong  about  the  motor-car.  How  the  deuce 
could  you  have  known  ?  Besides,  if  you  talked  to  the 
child  about  a  triple-expansion  boiler,  her  daddy  would 
be  sure  to  have  had  one  at  Shanghai.  Poor  little 
mite!" 

"  Yes,  poor  little  mite,"  said  Quixtus,  meditatively. 
"  I  wonder  what  will  become  of  her." 

"  That  has  got  to  be  our  look-out,"  she  replied 
sharply.  "  You  don't  seem  to  realise  that." 


254     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

"  I  don't  think  I  do  quite — even  after  what  you 
said  to  me  yesterday.  I  must  accustom  myself  to  the 
idea." 

"  Yesterday,"  said  Clementina,  "  you  declared  that 
you  had  fallen  in  love  with  her." 

"  Many  a  man,"  replied  Quixtus  with  a  faint  smile, 
"  has  fallen  in  love  with  one  of  your  sex  and  has  not 
in  the  least  known  what  to  do  with  her." 

The  grim  setting-  of  Clementina's  lips  relaxed. 

"  I  think  you're  becoming  more  human.  And, 
talking  of  humanity — there's  a  question  that  must  be 
cleared  up  between  us,  before  we  settle  down  to  this 
partnership.  Are  you  intending  to  keep  up  your  dia- 
bolical attitude  towards  Tommy  Burgrave  ?  " 

The  question  had  been  burning  her  tongue  for  over 
twenty-four  hours  ;  from  the  moment  that  he  had 
appeared  in  the  vestibule  the  day  before,  after  his 
sleep,  and  seemed  to  have  recovered  from  the  extraor- 
dinary nervous  collapse  which  had  aroused  her  pity. 
With  considerable  self-restraint  she  had  awaited  her 
opportunity.  Now  it  had  come — and  when  an 
opportunity  came  to  Clementina,  she  did  not  go  by 
four  roads  to  take  it.  Quixtus  laid  down  his  knife 
and  fork  and  leaned  back  in  his  chair.  Knowing  her 
attachment  to  the  boy,  he  had  expected  some 
reference  to  his  repudiation.  But  the  direct  question 
disconcerted  him.  Should  he  have  to  render  equally 
sudden  account  of  all  the  fantastic  iniquities  of  the 
past?  Then  something  he  had  not  thought  of  before 
entered  his  amazed  head.  He  had  never  counter- 
manded the  order  whereby  the  allowance  was  auto- 
matically transferred  from  his  own  banking  account 
to  Tommy's.  He  had  intended  to  write  the  letter 
after  having  destroyed  the  will,  but  his  reflections  on 
plagiarism  in  wickedness  which  had  led  to  the  preser- 
vation of  that  document,  had  also  caused  him  to  forget 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     255 

the  other  matter  entirely.  And  he  had  not  thought 
of  it  from  that  day  to  this. 

"  As  a  matter  of  fact/'  said  he,  looking  at  his  plate, 
"  I  have  not  disinherited  Tommy  ;  I  have  not  discon- 
tinued his  allowance,  and  I  have  placed  a  very  large 
sum  of  money  to  his  credit  at  the  bank." 

Clementina  knitted  her  brows  and  stared  at  him. 
The  man  was  a  greater  puzzle  than  ever.  Was  he  ly- 
ing ?  If  Tommy  had  found  himself  in  opulence,  he 
would  have  told  her.  Tommy  was  veracity  incarnate. 

"  The  boy  hasn't  a  penny  to  his  name — nothing  ex- 
cept his  mother's  fifty  pounds  a  year." 

He  met  her  black,  keen  eyes  steadily. 

"  I  am  telling  you  the  facts.  He  can't  have  enquired 
about  his  bank  balance  recently."  He  passed  his  hand 
across  his  forehead,  as  realisation  of  the  past  strange 
period  came  to  him.  "  I  suppose  he  can't  have  done 
so,  as  he  has  never  written  to  acknowledge  the — the 
large  amount  of  money." 

The  man  was  telling  the  truth.    It  was  mystifying. 

"  Then  why  in  the  name  of  Bedlam  did  you  play 
the  fool  with  him  like  that  ?  " 

"  That  is  another  matter,"  said  he,  lowering  his 
eyes.  "  For  the  sake  of  an  answer,  let  us  say  that  I 
wanted  to  test  his  devotion  to  his  art." 

"  We  can  say  it  as  much  as  we  please,  but  I  don't 
believe  it." 

"  I  will  ask  you,  Clementina,"  said  he,  courteously, 
"  as  a  great  personal  favour  to  let  it  pass  at  that." 

"  All  right,"  said  Clementina. 

He  went  on  with  his  dinner.  Presently  another 
thing  struck  him.  He  was  to  find  a  plaguey  lot  of 
things  to  strike  him  in  connection  with  his  lunacy. 

"  If  Tommy  was  penniless,"  said  he,  "  will  you  ex- 
plain how  he  has  managed  to  take  this  expensive  holi- 
day in  France." 


256     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

"  Look  here,  let  us  talk  of  something  else,"  she  re- 
plied. "  I'm  sick  of  Tommy." 

Visions  of  Tommy's  whooping  joy,  of  Etta's  radi- 
ance, when  they  should  hear  the  astounding  news, 
floated  before  her.  She  could  hear  him  telling  the  chit 
of  a  girl  to  put  on  her  orange-blossoms  and  go  out 
with  him  at  once  and  get  married.  She  could  hear 
Etta  say : 

"  Darling  Clementina,  do  run  out  and  buy  me  some 
orange-blossoms."  Much  the  two  innocents  cared 
for  darling  Clementina!  There  were  times  when  she 
really  did  not  know  whether  she  wanted  to  take 
them  both  in  her  arms  in  a  great  splendid  hug, 
or  tie  them  up  together  in  a  sack  and  throw  them  into 
the  Seine. 

"  I'm  sick  of  Tommy,"  she  declared. 

But  the  normal  brain  of  the  cultivated  man  had 
begun  to  work. 

"  Clementina,"  said  he,  "  it  is  you  that  have  been 
paying  Tommy's  expenses." 

"  Well,  suppose  I  have  ?  "  she  replied,  defiantly. 
She  added  quickly,  womanlike  divining  the  reproach 
to  Tommy,  underlying  Quixtus's  challenge  :  "  He's 
a  child  and  I'm  an  old  woman.  I  had  the  deuce's 
own  job  to  make  him  accept.  I  couldn't  go  careering 
about  France  all  by  myself — I  could,  as  a  matter  of 
practical  fact — I  could  career  all  over  Gehenna  if  I 
chose — but  it  wouldn't  have  been  gay.  He  sacrificed 
his  pride  to  give  me  a  holiday.  Wl^at  have  you  to 
say  against  it  ?  " 

A  flush  of  shame  mounted  to  Quixtus's  cheek.  It 
was  intolerable  that  one  of  his  house — his  sister's  son 
— should  have  been  dependent  for  bread  on  a  woman. 
He  himself  was  to  blame. 

"  Clementina,"  said  he,  "  this  is  a  very  delicate  mat- 
ter, and  I  hope  you  won't  misjudge  me  ;  but  as  your 


257 

great  generosity  was  based  on  a  most  unhappy  misun- 
derstanding  ' ' 

"  Ephraim  Quixtus,"  she  interrupted,  seeing  whither 
he  was  tending,  "  go  on  with  your  dinner  and  don't 
be  a  fool  ! " 

There  was  nothing  for  it  but  for  Quixtus  to  go  on 
with  his  dinner. 

"  I  tell  you  what,"  she  said,  after  a  pause,  in  spite 
of  her  weariness  of  Tommy  as  a  topic  of  conversation, 
"  when  Tommy  met  you  in  Paris,  he  didn't  know 
what  you've  just  told  me.  He  thought  you  had  un- 
reasonably and  heartlessly  cut  him  adrift.  And  yet  he 
greeted  you  as  affectionately  and  frankly  as  if  nothing 
had  happened." 

*  That's  true,"  Quixtus  admitted.     "  He  did." 

"  It  proves  to  you  what  a  sound-hearted  fellow 
Tommy  is." 

"  I  see,"  said  Quixtus.    "  Well  ?  " 

"  That's  all,"  said  Clementina.  "  Or  if  it  isn't  it 
ought  to  be." 

Quixtus  made  no  reply.  There  was  no  reply  pos- 
sible, save  the  real  explanation  of  his  eccentric  be- 
haviour; and  that  he  was  not  prepared  to  offer.  But 
Clementina's  rough  words  sank  deep  in  his  mind. 
Judged  by  ordinary  standards,  his  treatment  of  Tommy 
had  been  unqualifiable ;  Tommy's  behaviour  all  that 
was  most  meritorious.  In  Tommy's  case  wherein  lay 
the  proof  of  the  essential  depravity  of  mankind  ?  His 
gloomy  faith  received  a  shock  which  caused  him  ex- 
ceeding discomfort.  You  see,  if  you  take  all  the 
trouble  of  going  mad  for  the  sake  of  a  gospel,  you 
rather  cling  to  it  when  you  recover  sanity.  You  are 
rather  eager  to  justify  to  yourself  the  waste  of  time 
and  energy.  It  is  human  nature. 

After  dinner  she  dismissed  him.  He  must  go  out 
to  a  cafe  and  see  the  world.  She  had  to  look  after 


258     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

the  child's  slumbers,  and  write  letters.  Quixtus  went 
out  into  the  broad,  busy  streets.  The  Cannebiere 
was  crowded  with  gasping  but  contented  citizens. 
On  every  side  rose  the  murmur  of  mirth  and  cheerful- 
ness. Solid  burgesses  strolled  arm  in  arm  with  their 
solider  wives.  Youths  and  maidens  laughed  together. 
Swarthy  workmen  with  open  shirt-collars  showing 
their  hairy  throats,  bare-headed  workgirls  in  giggling 
knots,  little  soldiers  clinging  amorously  to  sweet- 
hearts— all  the  crowd  wore  an  air  of  gaiety,  of  love 
of  their  kind,  of  joy  in  comradeship.  At  the  thronged 
cafes,  too,  men  and  women  found  comfort  in  the 
swelter  of  gregariousness.  Night  had  fallen  over  the 
baking  city,  and  the  great  thoroughfare  blazed  in 
light — from  shop  windows,  cafes,  street  lamps,  from 
the  myriad  whirling  lamps  of  trams  and  motors. 
Above  it  all  the  full  moon  shone  splendid  from  the 
intense  sky  of  a  summer  night.  Quixtus  and  the  moon 
appeared  to  be  the  only  lonely  things  in  the  Cannebiere. 

He  wandered  down  to  the  quay  and  back  again 
in  ever-growing  depression.  He  felt  lost,  an  alien 
among  this  humanity  that  clung  together  for  mutual 
happiness  ;  he  envied  the  little  soldier  and  his  girl 
gazing  hungrily,  their  heads  almost  touching,  into  a 
cheap  jeweller's  window.  A  sudden  craving  such  as 
he  had  never  known  in  his  life,  awoke  within  him, 
insistent,  imperious — a  craving  for  human  companion- 
ship. Instinctively  he  walked  back  to  the  hotel, 
scarcely  realising  why  he  had  come,  until  he  saw 
Clementina  in  the  vestibule.  She  had  stuck  on  her 
crazy  hat  and  was  pulling  on  her  white  cotton  gloves, 
evidently  preparing  to  go  out. 

"  Hullo  !    Back  already  ?  " 

"  I  have  come  to  ask  you  a  favour,  Clementina/' 
said  he.  "  Would  it  bore  you  to  come  out  with  me — 
to  give  me  the  pleasure  of  your  company  ?  " 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     259 

"  It  wouldn't  bore  me,"  replied  Clementina.  "  Pre- 
cious few  things  do.  But  what  on  earth  can  you 
want  me  for  ?  " 

"  If  I  tell  you,  you  won't  mock  at  me  ?  " 

"  I  only  mock  at  you,  as  you  call  it,  when  you  do 
idiotic  things.  Anyhow,  I  won't  now.  What's  the 
matter  ?  " 

He  hesitated.  She  saw  that  her  brusqueness 
had  checked  something  natural  and  spontaneous.  At 
once  she  strove  to  make  amends,  and  laid  her  hand 
on  his  sleeve. 

"  We've  got  to  be  friends  henceforth,  Ephraim,  if 
only  for  the  child's  sake.  Tell  me." 

"  It  was  only  that  I  have  never  felt  so  dismally 
alone  in  my  life,  as  I  did  in  that  crowded  street." 

"And  so  you  came  back  for  me  ?" 

"  I  came  back  for  you,"  he  said  with  a  smile. 

"  Let  tis  go,"  said  Clementina,  and  she  put  her  arm 
through  his  and  they  went  out  together  and  walked 
arm  in  arm  like  hundreds  of  other  solemn  couples 
in  Marseilles. 

"  That  better  ?  "  she  asked  after  a  while,  with  a 
humorous  and  pleasant  sense  of  mothering  this  curi- 
ously pathetic  and  incomprehensible  man. 

The  unfamiliar  tone  in  her  voice  touched  him. 

"  I  had  no  idea  you  could  be  so  kind,  Clementina. 
Yesterday  morning,  when  I  was  ill — I  can  scarcely 
remember — but  I  feel  you  were  kind  then." 

"  I'm  not  always  a  rhinoceros,"  said  Clementina. 
"  But  what  am  I  doing  that's  kind  now  ?  " 

He  pressed  her  arm  gently.,  "  Just  this/  said  he. 

Then  Clementina  realised,  with  an  odd  thrill  of 
pleasure,  how  much  more  significance  often  lies  in 
little  things  than  in  big  ones. 

They  walked  along  the  quay  and  looked  at  the 
island  of  the  Chateau  d'lf  standing  out  grim  in  the 


26o     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

middle  of  the  moonlit  harbour,  turned  up  one  of  the 
short  streets  leading  to  the  Rue  de  Rome,  and  so 
came  into  the  Cannebiere  again.  A  table,  just  vacated 
on  the  outer  edge  of  the  terrace  of  one  of  the  cafes, 
allured  them.  They  sat  down  and  ordered  coffee. 
The  little  sentimental  walk  arm  in  arm  had  done 
much  to  dispose  each  kindly  towards  the  other. 
Quixtus  felt  grateful  for  her  rough  yet  subtle  sym- 
pathy, Clementina  appreciated  his  appreciation.  The 
atmosphere  of  antagonism  that  had  hitherto  sur- 
rounded them  had  disappeared.  For  the  first  time 
since  their  arrival  in  Marseilles  they  talked  on  general 
topics.  Almost  for  the  first  time  in  their  lives  they 
calked  of  general  topics  naturally,  without  constraint. 
Hitherto  she  had  always  kept  an  ear  cocked  for 
the  pedant  ;  he  for  the  scoffer.  She  had  been  im- 
patient of  his  quietism  ;  he  had  nervously  dreaded 
her  brutality.  Now  a  truce  was  declared.  She  fore- 
bore  to  jeer  at  his  favourite  pursuit,  it  not  entering  her 
head  to  do  so;  Quixtus,  a  man  of  breeding,  never 
rode  his  hobby  outside  his  ring,  except  in  self-defence. 
They  talked  of  music — a  band  was  playing  in  the 
adjoining  cafe.  They  discovered  a  common  ground 
in  Bach.  Desultory  talk  led  them  to  modern  opera. 
There  was  a  little  haunting  air,  said  he,  in  Hans  Joueur 
de  Flfite. 

"  This  ?  "  cried  Clementina,  leaning  across  the  table 
and  humming  it.  "  You're  the  only  English  creature 
I've  come  across  who  has  ever  heard  of  it." 

They  talked  of  other  things — of  travel.  Her  tour 
through  France  was  fresh  in  her  mind.  Sensitive 
artist,  she  was  full  of  the  architecture.  Wherever  she 
had  gone,  Quixtus  had  gone  before  her.  To  her  after 
astonishment,  for  she  was  too  much  interested  in  the 
talk  to  consider  it  at  the  time,  he  met  her  sympa- 
thetically on  every  point. 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     261 

"  The  priceless  treasures  of  France,"  said  he, 
"  are  the  remains  of  expiring  Gothic  and  the  early 
Renaissance.  Of  the  former  you  have  the  Palais  de 
Justice  at  Rouen — which  everybody  knows — and  the 
west  front  of  the  Cathedral  at  Vendome." 

"But  I've  just  been  to  Vendome!"  cried 
Clementina.  "  That  wonderful  flamboyant  win- 
dow !  " 

"  The  last  word  of  Gothic,"  said  Quixtus.  "  The 
funeral  pyre  of  Gothic — that  tracery — the  whole  thing 
is  on  fire — it's  all  leaping  flame — as  if  some  God  had 
said  '  Let  this  noble  thing  that  is  dead  have  a  stu- 
pendous end.'  Vendome  always  seems  to  me  like  the 
end  of  the  Viking.  They  sent  the  hero  away  to  sea 
in  a  blaze  of  fire." 

Richelieu,  the  little  town  not  far  from  Tours  where 
every  one  goes,  yet  so  unknown — built  by  the  great 
Cardinal  for  his  court  and  to-day  standing  with  hardly 
change  of  stick  or  stone,  just  as  Richelieu  left  it,  Quix- 
tus had  visited. 

"  But  that's  damnable !  "  cried  Clementina.  "  I 
thought  we  had  discovered  it." 

He  laughed.  "  So  did  I.  And  I  suppose  every- 
body who  goes  there  views  it  with  the  eyes  of  a  little 
Columbus." 

"  What  did  you  like  best  about  it?  " 

"  The  pictures  of  the  past  it  evoked.  The  cavalcade 
of  Richelieu's  nobles — all  in  their  Louis  Treize  finery 
— the  clatter  of  the  men-at-arms  down  that  broad, 
cobble-paved  central  street.  The  setting  was  all  there. 
It  was  so  easy  to  fill  it." 

"  That's  just  what  Tommy  did,"  said  Clementina. 
"  Tommy  made  a  fancy  sketch  on  the  spot  of  the 
Cardinal  entering  in  state  in  his  great  heavy  carrosse 
with  his  bodyguard  around  him." 

This   led   them   on   to   pictures.      She   found   that 


262     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

he  was  familiar  with  all  the  galleries  in  Europe — 
with  most  of  the  works  of  the  moderns.  She  had 
never  suspected  that  he  had  ideas  of  his  own  on  pic- 
tures. He  hated  what  he  called  the  "  nightmare  of 
.technique "  of  the  ultra-modern  school.  Clementina 
disliked  it  also.  "  All  great  art  was  simple,"  he  re- 
marked. "  Put  one  of  Hobbema's  sober  landscapes, 
the  Saint  Michael  of  Raphael,  amidst  the  hysteria  of 
the  Salon  des  Independents,  and  the  four  walls  would 
crumble  into  chaotic  paint. 

"  Which  reminds  me,"  said  he,  "  of  a  curious  little 
experience  a  good  many  years  ago.  It  was  at  the  first 
International  Art  Exhibition  in  London.  Paris  and 
Belgium  and  Holland  poured  out  their  violences  to 
unfamiliar  eyes — mine  were  unfamiliar,  at  any  rate. 
There  were  women  sitting  in  purple  cafes  with  orange 
faces  and  magenta  hair.  There  were  hideous  nudes 
with  muscles  on  their  knee-caps,  writhing  in  decadent 
symbolism.  There  were  portraits  so  flat  that  they  gave 
you  the  impression  of  insects  squashed  against  the 
wall.  I  remember  going  through,  not  understanding 
it  one  bit  ;  and  then  ia  the  midst  of  all  this  fever 
I  came  across  a  little  gem — so  cool,  so  finished,  so 
sane,  and  yet  full  of  grip,  and  I  stood  in  front  of  it 
until  I  got  better  and  then  went  away.  It  was  a  most 
curious  sensation,  like  a  cool  hand  on  a  fevered  brow. 
I  happened  not  to  have  a  catalogue,  so  I've  never 
known  the  painter." 

"  What  kind  of  a  picture  was  it  ?  "  asked  Clemen- 
tina. 

"  Just  a  child,  in  a  white  frock  and  a  blue  sash,  and 
not  a  remarkably  pretty  child  either.  But  it  was  a 
delightful  piece  of  work." 

"  Do  you  remember,"  she  asked,  "  whether  there 
was  a  mother-o'-pearl  box  on  a  litUe  (able  to  the  left 
of  the  girl  ?  " 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA    263 

"  Yes,"  said  Quixtus.  "  There  was.  Do  you  know 
the  picture  ?  " 

Clementina  smiled.  She  smiled  so  that  her  white, 
strong  teeth  became  visible.  Quixtus  had  never  seen 
Clementina's  teeth. 

"  Painted  it,"  said  Clementina,  throwing  forward 
both  her  hands  in  triumph. 

One  of  her  hands  met  the  long  glass  of  coffee  and 
sent  it  scudding  across  the  table.  Quixtus  instinctively 
jerked  his  chair  backward,  but  he  could  not  escape 
a  great  splash  of  coffee  over  his  waistcoat.  Full  of 
delight,  gratitude,  and  dismay,  Clementina  whipped 
up  her  white  cotton  gloves  and  before  waiters  with 
napkins  could  intervene,  she  wiped  him  comparatively 
dry. 

"  Your  gloves  !  Your  gloves !  "  he  cried,  pro- 
testing. 

She  held  up  the  unspeakable  things  and  almost 
laughed  as  she  threw  them  on  the  pavement,  whence 
they  were  picked  up  carefully  by  a  passing  urchin — 
for  nothing  is  wasted  in  France. 

"  I  would  have  wiped  you  clean  with  my — well, 
with  anything  I've  got,  in  return  for  you  having  re- 
membered my  picture." 

"  Well,"  said  he,  "  the  compliment  being  quite  un- 
conscious, was  all  the  more  sincere." 

The  waiter  mopped  up  the  flooded  table. 

"  Let  us  be  depraved,"  said  Clementina  in  high  good 
humour,  "  and  have  some  green  chartreuse." 

"  Willingly,"  smiled  Quixtus. 

So  they  were  depraved. 

And  when  Clementina  went  to  bed  she  wondered 
why  she  had  railed  at  Quixtus  all  these  years. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

CLEMENTINA  went  to  bed  a  happier  woman 
than  she  had  been  for  many  a  day.  Distrust- 
ing the  ministrations  of  the  Chinese  nurse,  she 
had  set  up  a  little  bed  for  Sheila  in  her  own  room. 
The  child  lay  there  fast  asleep,  the  faithful  Pinkie  pro- 
jecting- from  a  folded  arm  in  a  staring  and  uncomfort- 
able attitude  of  vigilance.  Clementina's  heart  throbbed 
as  she  bent  over  her.  All  that  she  had  struggled  for 
and  had  attained,  mastery  of  her  art,  fame  and  fortune, 
shrank  to  triviality  in  comparison  with  this  glorious 
gift  of  heaven.  She  remembered  scornful  words  she 
had  once  spoken  to  Tommy  :  "  Woman  has  always 
her  sex  hanging  round  the  neck  of  her  spirit."  She 
recognised  the  truth  of  the  saying  and  thanked  God 
for  it.  She  undressed  very  quietly  and  walked  about 
the  room  in  stocking-feet,  feeling  a  strange  sacred- 
ness  in  the  presence  of  the  sleeping  child. 

She  was  happier,  too,  in  that  she  had  forgiven 
Quixtus;  for  the  first  time  since  she  had  known  him 
she  felt  a  curiosity  regarding  him,  a  desire  for  his 
friendship  ;  scarcely  formulated,  arose  a  determination 
to  bring  something  vital  into  his  life.  As  the  notable 
housewife  entering  a  forlorn  man's  neglected  house 
longs  to  throw  open  windows,  shake  carpets,  sweep 
down  cobwebs,  abolish  dingy  curtains,  and  fill  the 
place  with  sunlight  and  chintz  and  other  gaiety,  so 
did  Clementina  long  to  sweep  and  garnish  Quixtus's 
dusty  heart.  He  had  many  human  possibilities.  After 
all,  there  must  be  something  sound  in  a  man  who  had 

264 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     265 

treasured  in  his  mind  the  memory  of  her  picture. 
Sheila  and  herself,  between  them,  would  transform 
him  into  a  gaunt  angel.  She  fell  asleep  smiling  at 
the  thought. 

Clementina  did  not  suffer  fools  gladly.  That  was 
why,  thinking  Quixtus  a  fool,  she  had  not  been  able  to 
abide  him  for  so  many  years.  And  that  was  why  she 
could  not  abide  the  fat  Chinese  nurse,  who  showed 
herself  to  be  a  mass  of  smiling  incompetence.  "  The 
way  she  washes  the  child  makes  me  sick,"  she  declared. 
"  If  I  see  much  more  of  her  heathen  idol's  grin,  I'll  go 
mad  and  bite  her."  So  the  next  day  Clementina,  with 
Quixtus  as  a  decorative  adjunct,  hunted  up  consular 
and  other  authorities  and  made  with  them  the  neces- 
sary arrangements  for  shipping  her  off  to  Shanghai, 
for  which  she  secretly  pined,  by  the  next  outward- 
bound  steamer.  When  they  got  to  London  she  would 
provide  the  child  with  a  proper  Christian  nurse,  who 
would  bring  her  up  in  the  fear  of  the  Lord  and  in 
habits  of  tidiness  ;  and  in  the  meanwhile  she  herself 
would  assume  the  responsibility  of  Sheila's  physical 
well-being. 

"  I'm  not  going  to  have  a  flighty  young  girl,"  she 
remarked.  "  I  could  tackle  her,  but  you  couldn't." 

"  Why  should  I  attempt  to  tackle  her  ? "  asked 
Quixtus. 

"  You'll  be  responsible  for  the  child  when  she  stays 
in  Russell  Square." 

"  Russell  Square  ?  "  he  echoed. 

"  Yes.  She  will  live  partly  with  you  and  partly  with 
me — three  months  with  each  of  us,  alternately.  Where 
did  you  expect  the  child  to  live  ?  " 

"  Upon  my  soul,"  said  he,  "  I  haven't  considered  the 
matter.  Well — well " 

He  walked  about  the  vestibule,  revolving  this  new 
and  alarming  proposition.  To  have  a  little  girl  of 


266     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

five  planted  in  his  dismal,  decorous  house — what  in 
the  world  should  he  do  with  her  ?  It  would  revolu- 
tionise his  habits.  Clementina  watched  him  out  of  a 
corner  of  her  eye. 

"  You  didn't  suppose  I  was  going  to  have  all  the 
worry,  did  you  ?  " 

"  No,  no,"  he  said  hastily.  "  Of  course  not.  I 
see  I  must  share  all  responsibilities  with  you.  Only — 
won't  she  find  living  with  me  rather  dull  ?  " 

"  You  can  keep  a  lot  of  cats  and  dogs  and  rocking- 
horses,  and  give  children's  parties,"  said  Clementina. 

Sheila,  who  had  been  apparently  absorbed  in  the 
mysteries  of  the  Parisian  toilet  of  a  flaxen-haired  doll 
which  Clementina  had  bought  for  her  at  an  extrava- 
gant price,  cheerfully  lifted  up  her  face. 

"  Auntie  says  that  when  I  come  to  stay  with  you, 
I'm  to  be  mistress  of  the  house." 

"  Indeed  ?  "  said  Quixtus. 

"  And  I'm  to  be  a  real  lady  and  sit  at  the  end  of 
the  table  and  entertain  the  guests." 

"  I  suppose  that  settles  it  ?  "  he  said,  with  a  smile. 

"  Of  course  it  does,"  said  Clementina,  and  she  won- 
dered whether  his  masculine  mind  would  ever  be  in  a 
condition  to  grasp  the  extent  of  the  sacrifice  she  was 
making. 

That  day  the  remains  of  Will  Hammersley  were  laid 
to  rest  in  the  little  Protestant  cemetery.  The  consular 
chaplain  read  the  service.  Only  the  two  elders  stood 
by  the  graveside,  thinking  the  ordeal  too  harrowing 
for  the  child.  Clementina  wept,  for  some  of  her  wasted 
youth  lay  in  the  coffin.  But  Quixtus  stood  with  dry 
eyes  and  set  features.  Now  he  was  sane.  Now  he 
could  view  life  calmly.  He  knew  that  his  memory  of 
the  dead  would  always  be  bitter.  Reason  could  not 
sweeten  it.  It  were  better  to  forget.  Let  the  dead 
past  bury  its  dead.  The  dead  man's  child  he  would 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     267 

take  to  his  heart  for  her  own  helpless,  sweet  sake. 
Should  she,  in  years  to  come,  turn  round  and  repay 
him  with  treachery  and  ingratitude,  it  would  be  but 
the  way  of  all  flesh.  In  the  meanwhile  he  would  be 
loyal  to  his  word. 

After  the  service  came  to  a  close  he  stood  for  a  few 
moments  gazing  into  the  grave.  Clementina  edged 
close  to  him  and  pointed  down  to  the  coffin. 

"  He  may  have  wronged  you,  but  he  trusted  you," 
she  said  in  a  low  voice. 

"  That's  true,"  said  Quixtus.  And  as  they  drove 
back  in  silence,  he  murmured  once  or  twice  to  himself, 
half  audibly  : 

"  He  wronged  me,  but  he  trusted  me." 

That  evening  they  started  for  Paris. 

Undesirous  of  demonstrative  welcome  at  half-past 
eight  in  the  morning,  Clementina  had  not  informed 
Tommy  and  Etta  of  the  time  of  her  arrival,  and  Quix- 
tus had  not  indulged  in  superfluous  correspondence 
with  Huckaby.  The  odd  trio  now  so  closely  related 
stood  lonely  at  the  exit  of  the  Lyons  Station,  while 
porters  deposited  their  luggage  in  cabs.  Each  of  the 
elders  felt  a  curious  reluctance  to  part,  even  for  a  few 
hours,  for  they  had  agreed  to  lunch  together.  Sheila 
shed-  a  surprised  tear.  She  had  adjusted  her  small 
mind  to  the  entrance  of  her  Uncle  Ephraim  into  her 
life.  The  sudden  exit  startled  her.  On  his  promising 
to  see  her  very  soon,  she  put  her  arms  prettily  round 
his  neck  and  kissed  him.  He  drove  off  feeling  the 
flower-like  pressure  of  the  child's  lips  to  his,  and  it 
was  very  sweet. 

It  helped  him  to  take  up  the  threads  of  Paris  where 
he  had  left  them,  a  difficult  task.  Deep  shame  smote 
him.  What  could  be  henceforward  his  relations  with 
Huckaby,  whom,  with  crazy,  malevolent  intent,  he  had 
promised  to  maintain  in  the  path  of  clean  living  ? 


With  what  self-respect  could  he  look  into  the  eyes  of 
Mrs.  Fontaine,  innocent  and  irreproachable  woman, 
whose  friendship  he  had  cultivated  with  such  dastardly 
design  ?  She  had  placed  herself  so  frankly,  so  un- 
suspectingly in  his  hands.  To  him,  now,  it  was  as 
unimaginable  to  betray  her  trust  as  to  betray  that  of 
the  child  whose  kiss  lingered  on  his  lips.  If  ever  a 
woman  deserved  compensation,  full  and  plenteous,  at 
the  hands  of  man,  that  was  the  woman.  An  insult 
unrealised  is  none  the  less  an  insult ;  and  he,  Quixtus, 
had  insulted  a  woman.  If  only  to  cleanse  his  own 
honour  from  the  stain,  he  must  make  compensation  to 
this  sweet  lady.  But  how  ?  By  faithful  and  loyal 
service. 

When  he  solemnly  reached  this  decision  I  think  that 
more  than  one  angel  wept  and  at  the  same  time  wanted 
to  shake  him. 

And  behind  these  two  whom  he  would  meet  in  Paris, 
loomed  the  forbidding  faces  of  Billiter  and  Vander- 
meer.  He  shivered  as  at  contact  with  something  un- 
clean. He  had  chosen  these  men  as  ministers  of  evil. 
He  had  taken  them  into  his  crazy  confidence.  With 
their  tongues  in  their  cheeks,  these  rogues  had  ex- 
ploited him.  He  remembered  loathsome  scenarios  of 
evil  dramas  they  had  submitted.  Thank  Heaven  for 
the  pedantic  fastidiousness  that  had  rejected  them  ! 
Billiter,  Vandermeer,  Huckaby — the  only  three  of  all 
men  living  who  knew  the  miserable  secret  of  his  recent 
life  !  In  a  rocky  wilderness  he  could  have  raced  with 
wild  gestures  like  the  leper,  shouting  "  Unclean  !  Un- 
clean !  "  But  Paris  is  not  a  rocky  wilderness,  and 
the  semi-extinct  quadruped  in  the  shafts  of  the  modern 
Paris  fiacre  conveys  no  idea  of  racing. 

Yet  while  his  soul  cried  this  word  of  horror,  the 
child's  kiss  lingered  as  a  sign  and  a  consecration. 

The  first  thing  to  do  was  to  set  himself  right  with 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     269 

Huckaby.  Companionship  with  the  man  on  the  recent 
basis  was  impossible.  He  made  known  his  arrival, 
and  an  hour  afterwards,  having  bathed  and  break- 
fasted, he  sat  with  Huckaby  in  the  pleasant  courtyard 
of  the  hotel.  Huckaby,  neat  and  trim,  and  clear-eyed, 
clad  in  well-fitting  blue  serge,  gave  him  the  news  of 
the  party.  Mrs.  Fontaine  had  introduced  him  to  some 
charming  French  people  whose  hospitality  he  had  ven- 
tured to  accept.  She  was  well  and  full  of  plans  for 
little  festas  for  the  remainder  of  their  stay  in  Paris. 
Lady  Louisa  had  found  a  cavalier,  an  elderly  French 
marquis  of  deep  gastronomic  knowledge. 

"  Lady  Louisa,"  said  he  with  a  sigh  of  relief  and  a 
sly  glance  at  Quixtus,  "  is  a  charming  lady,  but  not  a 
highly  intellectual  companion." 

"  Do  you  really  crave  highly  intellectual  companions, 
Huckaby  ?  "  asked  Quixtus. 

Huckaby  bit  his  lip. 

"  Do  you  remember  our  last  conversation  ?  "  he  said 
at  last. 

"  I  remember,"  said  Quixtus. 

"  I  asked  you  for  a  chance.  You  promised.  I  was 
in  earnest." 

"  I  wasn't,"  said  Quixtus. 

Huckaby  started  and  gripped  the  arm  of  his  chair. 
He  was  about  to  protest  when  Quixtus  checked 
him. 

"  I  want  you  to  know,"  said  he,  "  that  great  changes 
have  taken  place  since  then.  I  left  Paris  in  ill-health, 
I  return  sound.  I  should  like  you  to  grasp  the  deep 
significance  underlying  those  few  words.  I  will  repeat 
them." 

He  did  so.  Huckaby  looked  hard  at  his  patron, 
who  stood  the  scrutiny  with  a  grave  smile. 

"  I  think  I  understand,"  he  replied  slowly.  "  Then 
Billiter  and  Vandermeer  ?  " 


270     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

"  Billiter  and  Vandermeer  I  put  out  of  my  life  for 
ever;  but  I  shall  see  they  are  kept  from  want." 

"  They  can't  be  kept  from  wanting  more  than  you 
give  them,"  said  Huckaby,  whose  brain  worked  swiftly 
and  foresaw  blackmail.  "  You  must  impose  condi- 
tions." 

"  I  never  thought  of  that,"  said  Quixtus. 

"  Set  a  thief  to  catch  a  thief,"  said  the  other  bitterly. 
"  I'm  telling  you  for  your  own  good." 

"  If  they  attempt  to  write  to  me  or  see  me,  their 
allowances  will  cease." 

He  covered  his  eyes  with  his  hand,  as  though  to  shut 
out  their  hateful  faces.  There  was  a  short  silence. 
Huckaby's  lips  grew  dry.  He  moistened  them  with  his 
tongue. 

"  And  what  about  me  ?  "  he  asked  at  last. 

Quixtus  drew  away  his  hand  with  a  despairing  ges- 
ture, but  made  no  reply. 

"  I  suppose  you're  right  in  classing  me  with  the 
others,"  said  Huckaby.  "  Heaven  knows  I  oughtn't  to 
judge  them.  I  was  in  with  them  all  the  time  " — Quix- 
tus winced — "  but  I  can't  go  back  to  them." 

"  My  treating  you  just  the  same  as  them  won't  neces- 
sitate your  going  back  to  them." 

Huckaby  bent  forward,  quivering,  in  his  chair.  "  As 
there's  a  God  in  Heaven,  Quixtus,  I  wouldn't  accept 
a  penny  from  you  on  those  terms." 

"  And  why  not  ?  " 

"  Because  I  don't  want  your  money.  I  want  to  be 
put  in  a  position  to  earn  some  honourably  for  myself. 
I  want  your  help  as  a  man,  your  sympathy  as  a  human 
being.  I  want  you  to  help  me  to  live  a  clean,  straight 
life.  I  kept  the  promise,  the  important  promise  I  made 
you,  ever  since  we  started.  You  can't  say  I  haven't. 
And  since  you  left  I've  not  touched  a  drop  of  alcohol — 
and,  if  you  promise  to  help  me,  I  swear  to  God  I  never 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     271 

will  as  long  as  I  live.  What  can  I  do,  man,"  he  cried, 
throwing  out  his  arms,  "  to  prove  to  you  that  I'm  in 
deadly  earnest?" 

Quixtus  lay  back  in  his  chair  reflecting,  his  finger- 
tips joined  together.  Presently  a  smile,  half  humorous, 
half  kindly,  lit  up  his  features — a  smile  such  as  Huck- 
aby  had  not  seen  since  before  the  days  of  the  hostless 
dinner  of  disaster,  and  it  was  manifest  to  Huckaby 
that  some  at  least  of  the  Quixtus  of  old  had  come  back 
to  earth. 

"  In  the  last  day  or  two,"  said  Quixtus,  "  I  have 
formed  a  staunch  friendship  with  one  who  was  a 
crabbed  and  inveterate  enemy.  It  is  Miss  Clementina 
Wing,  the  painter,  whom  you  saw,  in  somewhat  pain- 
ful circumstances,  the  other  day  at  the  tea-room.  I 
will  give  you  an  opportunity — I  hope  many — of  meet- 
ing her  again.  I  don't  want  to  hurt  your  feelings,  my 
dear  Huckaby — but  so  many  strange  things  have  hap- 
pened of  late,  that  I,  for  the  present,  mistrust  my  own 
judgment.  I  hope  you  understand." 

"  Not  quite.     You  don't  mean  to  tell " 

Quixtus  flushed  and  drew  himself  up. 

"  After  twenty  years,  do  you  know  me  so  little  as 
that  ?  " 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,"  said  the  other  humbly. 

Again  Quixtus  smiled,  at  a  reminiscent  phrase  of 
Clementina's. 

"  At  any  rate,  my  dear  fellow,"  said  he,  "  even  if 
she  doesn't  approve  of  you,  she  will  do  you  a  thunder- 
ing lot  of  good." 

At  the  smile  Huckaby  took  heart  of  grace ;  but  at 
the  same  time  the  memory  of  Clementina,  storming 
over  the  tea-table,  for  all  the  world  like  a  French  revo- 
lutionary general,  filled  his  soul  with  wholesome  dis- 
may. Well,  there  was  no  help  for  it  ;  he  must  take  his 
chance  ;  so  he  filled  a  philosophic  pipe. 


272     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

A  little  later  Quixtus  met  the  spotless  flower  of 
womanhood  whom  he  had  so  grievously  insulted.  She 
greeted  him  with  both  hands  outstretched.  Without 
him  Paris  had  been  a  desert.  Why  had  he  not  sent 
her  the  smallest,  tiniest  line  of  news?  Ah!  She  un- 
derstood. It  had  been  a  sojourn  of  pain.  Never  mind. 
Paris,  she  hoped,  would  prove  to  be  an  anodyne.  Only 
if  she  would  administer  it  in  the  right  doses,  said 
Quixtus  gallantly.  Dressed  with  exquisite  demure- 
ness,  she  found  favour  in  his  sight.  He  realised  with  a 
throb  of  thanksgiving  that  henceforward  he  could  meet 
her  on  equal  terms — as  an  honourable  gentleman — no 
grotesque  deviltry  haunting  the  back  of  his  mind  and 
clouding  the  serenity  of  their  intercourse. 

"  Tell  me  what  you  have  been  doing  with  yourself," 
she  said,  drawing  him  to  a  seat.  The  little  air  of  inti- 
macy and  ownership  so  delicately  assumed,  captivated 
the  remorseful  man.  He  had  not  realised  the  charm 
that  awaited  him  in  Paris. 

He  touched  lightly  on  Marseilles  happenings,  spoke 
of  his  guardianship,  of  Sheila,  of  her  clinging,  feminine 
ways,  drew  a  smiling  picture  of  his  terror  when  Clem- 
entina had  first  left  him  alone  with  the  child. 

Mrs.  Fontaine  laughed  sympathetically  at  the  tale, 
and  then,  with  a  touch  of  tenderness  in  her  voice  that 
perhaps  was  not  deliberate,  said  : 

"  In  spite  of  the  worries,  you  have  benefited  by  the 
change.  You  have  come  back  a  different  man." 

"  In  what  way  ?  " 

"  I  can't  define  it." 

"  Try." 

A  quick  glance  met  earnest  questioning  in  his  eyes. 
She  looked  down  and  daintily  plucked  at  the  sunshade 
across  her  lap. 

"  I  should  say  you  had  come  back  more  human." 

Quixtus's  eyelids  flickered.     Clementina  had  used 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     273 

the  same  word.  Was  there  then  an  obvious  trans- 
formation from  Quixtus  furens  to  Quixtus  sane  ? 

He  remembered  the  child's  kiss.  "  Perhaps  it's  my 
new  responsibilities,"  he  said  with  a  smile. 

"  I  should  so  much  like  to  see  her.  I  wonder  if  I 
ever  shall,"  said  Mrs.  Fontaine. 

"  She  is  coming  here  to  lunch  with  Miss  Wing," 
replied  Quixtus,  eager  now  that  his  good  friends 
should  know  and  appreciate  each  other.  "  Won't  Lady 
Louisa  and  yourself  join  us  ?  " 

"  Delighted,"  said  Mrs.  Fontaine.  "  Miss  Clemen- 
tina Wing  is  quite  a  character.  I  should  like  to  see 
more  of  her." 

Quixtus,  his  mind  full  of  sweet  atonement,  did  not 
detect  any  trace  of  acidity  in  her  words. 

On  the  stroke  of  one,  the  time  appointed  for 
luncheon,  Clementina  and  Sheila  appeared  at  the  end 
of  the  long  lounge,  Tommy  and  Etta  straggling  in 
their  wake.  Quixtus  rose  from  the  table  where  his 
three  friends  were  seated,  and  advanced  to  meet  them. 
Sheila  ran  forward  and  he  took  her  in  his  arms  and 
kissed  her. 

"  You  didn't  ask  these  children  to  lunch,  but  I 
brought  'em." 

"  They're  very  welcome,"  said  Quixtus,  smiling. 

Tommy,  his  fair  face  aflame  with  joy,  wrung  his 
hand.  "  I  told  you  I  would  look  you  up  in  the  Hotel 
Continental.  By  Jove  !  I  am  glad  to  see  you. 
I've  been  an  awful  ass,  you  know.  Of  course  I 
thought " 

"  Hush  !  Hush  !  "  said  Quixtus.  "  My  dear  Miss 
Concannon,  I  am  delighted  to  see  you." 

"  She  goes  by  the  name  of  Etta,"  said  Tommy, 
proudly. 

Clementina  jerked  her  thumb  towards  them  : 

"  Engaged.     Young  idiots  !  " 


274     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

"  My  dear  Miss  Etta,"  said  Quixtus,  taking  the  hand 
of  the  furiously  blushing  girl — "  My  friend,  Tommy, 
is  an  uncommonly  lucky  fellow."  He  nodded  at 
Sheila,  who  hung  on  to  his  finger-tips.  "  Have  you 
made  friends  with  this  young  lady  ?  " 

"  She's  a  darling  !  "  cried  Etta. 

"  Clementina,"  said  Tommy,  "  you're  a  wretch. 
You  shouldn't  have  given  us  away." 

"  You  gave  yourselves  away,  you  silly  geese.  People 
have  been  grinning  at  you  all  the  time  you  were  walk- 
ing here."  Then  her  glance  fell  upon  the  expectant 
trio  a  little  way  off.  "  Oh  Lord  ! "  she  said,  "  those 
people  again  ! " 

"  They're  my  very  good  friends,"  said  Quixtus, 
"  and  I  want  you  to  meet  them  again  in  normal  cir- 
cumstances. I  want  you  to  like  them." 

He  looked  at  her  in  mild  appeal.  Clementina's  lips 
twisted  into  a  wry  smile. 

"  All  right,"  she  said.    "  Don't  worry.    I'll  be  civil." 

So  it  came  to  pass  that  the  two  women  again  faced 
each  other  ;  Mrs.  Fontaine  all  daintiness  and  fragrance 
in  her  simple  but  exquisitely  cut  fawn  costume,  the 
chaste  contours  of  her  face  set  off  by  an  equally  simple 
ten-guinea  black  hat  with  an  ostrich  feather  ;  Clemen- 
tina, rugged,  powerful,  untidy  in  her  ill-fitting,  mus- 
tardy  brown  stuff  skirt  and  jacket,  and  heavy,  busi- 
nesslike shoes  ;  and  again  between  the  two  pairs  of 
eyes  was  the  flicker  of  rapiers.  And  as  soon  as  th^y 
were  disengaged  and  Clementina  turned  to  Lady 
Louisa,  she  felt  the  other's  swift  glance  travel  from  the 
soles  of  her  feet  to  the  rickety  old  rose  in  her  hat. 
There  are  moments  when  sex  gives  a  woman  eyes  in 
the  back  of  her  head.  She  turned  round  quickly  and 
surprised  the  most  elusive  ghost  of  a  smile  imaginable. 
For  the  first  time  in  her  life  Clementina  felt  herself  at 
a  disadvantage.  She  winced  ;  then  mentally,  so  as  to 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     275 

speak,  snapped  her  fingers.  What  had  she  to  do  with 
the  woman,  or  the  woman  with  her  ? 

All  the  presentations  having  been  made,  Quixtus 
led  the  way  to  the  restaurant  of  the  hotel. 

"  Clementina,"  said  he,  "  may  I  ask  you  to  concede 
the  place  of  honour  for  this  occasion  to  my  unexpected 
but  most  charming  and  most  welcome  guest  ?  " 

He  indicated  Etta  still  blushing  into  whose  ear 
Tommy  whispered  that  his  uncle  always  spoke  like  a 
penny  book  with  the  covers  off. 

"  My  dear  man,"  said  Clementina,  "  stick  me  any- 
where, so  long  as  it's  next  the  baby  and  I  can  see  that 
nobody  feeds  her  on  anchovies  and  lobster  salad." 

She  understood  perfectly.  The  second  seat  of  hon- 
our was  Mrs.  Fontaine's.  She  confounded  Mrs.  Fon- 
taine. But  what  was  Mrs.  Fontaine  to  her  or  she  to 
Mrs.  Fontaine  ? 

They  took  their  places%  at  the  round  table  laid  for 
eight.  On  Quixtus's  right,  Etta;  on  his  left  Mrs. 
Fontaine  ;jthierT  Sheila,  somewhat  awed  at  the  grown- 
up luncheon  party  and  squeezing  Pinkie  very  tight  so 
as  to  give  her  courage  ;  then  Clementina  with  Huck- 
aby  as  left-hand  neighbour  ;  then  Lady  Louisa,  and 
Tommy  next  to  Etta. 

Clementina  kept  her  word  and  behaved  with  great 
civility.  Tommy  politely  addressed  Lady  Louisa  to 
the  immense  relief  of  Huckaby,  who  thus  temporarily 
freed  from  his  Martha,  plunged  into  eager  conversa- 
tion with  Clementina  about  her  picture  in  the  Salon, 
which  had  attracted  considerable  attention.  He  did 
not  tell  her  that,  in  order  to  refresh  his  memory  of  the 
masterpiece,  he  had  revisited  the  Grand  Palais  that 
morning.  He  praised  the  technique.  There  was  in  it 
that  hint  of  Velasquez  which  so  many  portrait-painters 
tried  for  and  so  few  got.  This  pleased  Clementina. 
Velasquez  was  the  god  of  her  art.  One  bright  space 


276     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

in  her  dreary  youth  was  her  life  with  Velasquez  in 
Madrid. 

"  I  too  once  tried  to  know  something  about  him," 
said  Huckaby.  "  I  wrote  a  monograph — a  wretched 
compilation  only — in  a  series  of  Lives  of  Great  Paint- 
ers for  a  firm  of  publishers." 

Hack  work  or  not,  the  authorship  of  a  Life  of  Ve- 
lasquez was  enough  to  prejudice  her  in  Huckaby's 
favour.  She  learned,  too,  that  he  was  a  sometime 
Fellow  of  Corpus  Christi  College,  Cambridge,  and  a 
university  contemporary  of  Quixtus.  Huckaby,  find- 
ing her  not  the  rough-tongued  virago  from  whom 
Quixtus  had  always  shrunk,  and  of  whom,  at  their 
one  meeting  in  the  tea-room,  he,  himself,  had  not 
received  the  suavest  impression,  but  a  frank,  intelligent 
woman,  gradually  forgot  his  anxiety  to  please  and 
talked  naturally  as  became  a  man  of  his  scholarship. 
The  result  was  that  Clementina  thought  him  a  pleasant 
and  sensible  fellow,  an  opinion  which  she  expressed 
later  in  the  day  to  Quixtus. 

With  regard  to  Mrs.  Fontaine,  her  promise  of  lady- 
like behaviour  was  harder  to  keep.  All  through  the 
meal  her  dislike  grew  stronger.  That  Quixtus  should 
bend  towards  Etta,  in  his  courtly  fashion,  and  pay  her 
little  gallant  attentions,  was  but  natural  ;  indeed  it  was 
charming  courtesy  towards  Tommy's  betrothed  ;  but 
that  he  should  do  the  same  to  Mrs.  Fontaine  and  add 
to  it  a  subtle  shade  of  intimacy,  was  exasperating.  In 
the  lady's  attitude,  too,  towards  Quixtus,  Clementina 
perceived  an  air  of  proprietorship,  a  triumphant  con- 
sciousness of  her  powers  of  fascination.  When  Quix- 
tus addressed  a  remark  across  the  table  to  Clementina, 
Mrs.  Fontaine  adroitly  drew  his  attention  to  herself. 
Her  manner  gave  Clementina  to  understand  that,  al- 
though a  frump  of  a  portrait  painter  might  be  an 
important  person  in  a  studio,  yet  in  the  big  world  out- 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     277 

side,  the  attractive  woman  had  victorious  pre-emi- 
nence. Now  Clementina  was  a  woman,  and  one  whose 
nature  had  lately  gone  through  unusual  convulsions. 
She  found  it  difficult  to  be  polite  to  Mrs.  Fontaine. 
Only  once  was  there  a  tiny  eruption  of  the  volcano. 

Sheila's  seat  at  the  table  being  too  low  for  her 
small  body,  Clementina  demanded  a  cushion  from  the 
maitre  d'hotel.  When,  after  some  delay,  a  waiter 
brought  it,  she  was  engaged  in  talk  with  Huckaby. 
She  turned  in  time  to  see  Mrs.  Fontaine  about  to  lift 
Sheila  from  her  seat.  With  a  sudden,  rough  movement 
she  all  but  snatched  the  child  out  of  the  other's  arms, 
and  herself  saw  to  Sheila's  sedentary  comfort. 

She  didn't  care  what  Quixtus  or  any  one  else 
thought  of  her.  She  was  not  going  to  have  this  alien 
woman  touch  her  child.  The  hussy  flirtation  with 
Quixtus  she  could  not  prevent.  But  no  woman  born 
of  woman  should  come  between  her  and  the  beloved 
child  of  her  adoption. 

The  incident  passed  almost  unnoticed.  The  meal 
ended  pleasantly.  With  the  exception  of  the  two 
women  in  their  mutual  attitude,  everybody  was  sur- 
prisedly  delighted  with  everybody  else.  Etta  thought 
Quixtus  the  very  dearest  thing,  next  to  Admiral  Con- 
cannon,  that  had  ever  a  bald  spot  on  the  top  of  his 
head.  Clementina,  in  a  fit  of  graciousness,  gave  Huck- 
aby the  precious  freedom  of  her  studio.  He  could 
come  and  look  at  her  pictures  whenever  he  liked. 
Sheila,  made  much  of,  went  away  duly  impressed  with 
her  new  friends.  Quixtus  rubbed  his  hands  at  the 
success  of  his  party.  The  apparently  irreconcilable 
were  reconciled,  difficulties  were  vanishing  rapidly,  his 
path  stretched  out  before  him  in  rosy  smoothness. 

But  Tommy's  quick  eyes  had  noticed  the  snatching 
of  Sheila. 

"  Etta,"  said  he,  "  I've  known  Clementina  intimately 


278    THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

all  these  years,  and  I  find  I  know  nothing  at  all  about 
her." 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?  "  asked  the  girl. 

"  For  the  first  time  in  my  life,"  said  he,  "  I've  just 
discovered  that  the  dear  old  thing  is  as  jealous  as  a 
cat." 


CHAPTER  XX 

*'  "E  /f"Y  good  children,  I  tell  you  we'll  go  by 
V/l  train,"  said  Clementina,  putting  her  foot 

-L  »  A  down.  "  I  don't  care  a  brass  button  for 
the  chauffeur's  loneliness,  and  the  prospect  of  his  pin- 
ing away  on  his  journey  back  to  London  leaves  me 
cold." 

She  had  exhausted  the  delights  of  the  car  of  thirty- 
five  million  dove-power,  and  was  anxious  to  settle 
Sheila  in  Romney  Place  as  quickly  as  possible. 

"  As  for  you  two,"  she  added,  "  you  have  had  as 
big  a  dose  of  each  other  as  is  good  for  you." 

Only  one  thing  tempted  her  to  linger  in  Paris — 
curiosity  as  to  the  sentimental  degree  of  the  friendship 
between  the  lady  of  her  disfavour  and  Quixtus.  That 
she  was  a  new  friend  and  not  an  old  friend,  the  ex- 
change of  a  few  remarks  with  the  ingenuous  Lady 
Louisa  had  enabled  her  very  soon  to  discover.  Clem- 
entina looked  askance  on  such  violent  intimacies. 
Quixtus,  for  whose  welfare  now  she  felt  herself,  in 
an  absurd  way,  responsible,  had  not  the  constitution 
to  stand  them.  The  lady  might  be  highly  connected 
and  move  in  the  selectest  of  circles,  but  she  had  a  hard 
edge,  betraying  what  Clementina  was  pleased  to  call 
the  society  hack  ;  she  was  shallow,  insincere  ;  talked 
out  of  a  hastily  stuffed  memory  instead  of  an  intellect  ; 
she  had  the  vulgarity  of  good  breeding,  as  noticeable 
a  quality  as  the  good-breeding  of  one  in  lowly  station  ; 
she  was  insufferable — an  impossible  companion  for  a 
man  of  Quixtus's  mental  equipment  and  sensitive  or- 

279 


280     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

ganisation.    There  was  something  else  about  her  that 
baffled  Clementina,  and  further  whetted  her  curiosity. 

Neither  was  Clementina  perfect,  nor  did  she  look  for 
perfection  in  this  compromise  of  a  world.  As  an 
artist  she  demanded  light  and  shade.  "  I  wouldn't 
paint  an  angel's  portrait,"  she  said  once,  "  for  fifty 
thousand  pounds.  And  if  an  angel  came  to  tea  with 
me,  the  first  thing  I  should  do  would  be  to  claw  off 
his  wings."  Now,  no  one  could  deny  the  light  and 
shade  in  Lena  Fontaine.  But  there  is  such  a  thing 
as  false  chiaroscuro,  and  it  offends  and  perplexes  the 
artist.  Lena  Fontaine  offended  and  perplexed  Clemen- 
tina. 

Again,  Clementina,  with  regard  to  the  chambers  of 
her  heart,  was  somewhat  house-proud.  Very  few 
were  admitted  ;  but  once  admitted,  the  favoured  mor- 
tal was  welcome  to  stay  there  for  ever.  Now,  behold 
an  exasperating  aggravation.  She  had  just  received 
Quixtus  in  the  very  best  guest-room,  and  instead  of 
admiring  it  and  taking  his  ease  in  it,  here  he  was  hang- 
ing half-way  out  of  window,  all  ears  to  a  common 
hussy.  If  she  had  an  insane  desire  to  pull  him  back 
by  the  coat-tails,  who  can  blame  her  ? 

No  sensible  purpose  being  attainable,  however,  by 
lingering  in  Paris,  she  gruffly  sent  temptation  packing, 
and,  with  her  brood  under  her  wing,  took  the  noon 
train  from  the  Gare  du  Nord  on  the  following  day. 

Quixtus  was  there,  at  the  station,  to  see  them  off, 
his  arms  filled  with  packages.  As  he  could  not  raise 
his  hat  when  the  party  approached,  he  smiled  apolo- 
getically, looking,  according  to  Tommy,  like  Father 
Christmas  detected  at  Midsummer.  There  was  a  great 
bouquet  of  orchids  for  Clementina  (such  a  handy 
useful  thing  on  the  journey  from  Paris  to  London  !) 
an  enormous  bonbonniere  of  sweets  for  Etta  ;  a  stupen- 
dous woolly  lamb  for  Sheila  which,  on  something 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     281 

being  done  to  its  anatomy,  opened  its  mouth  and 
gramaphonically  chanted  the  "  Jewel  Song "  from 
Faujt  ;  and  a  gold  watch  for  Tommy. 

The  singing  of  the  lamb,  incautiously  exploited  on 
the  platform,  to  Sheila's  ecstasy,  caused  considerable 
dislocation  of  railway  business.  A  crowd  collected  to 
see  the  gaunt,  scholarly  Englishman  holding  the  apoca- 
lyptic beast  in  his  arms,  all  intent  on  the  rapture  of 
the  tiny  flower-like  thing  standing  open-mouthed  be- 
fore him.  Even  porters  forgot  to  say  "  Faites  atten- 
tion," and  stopped  their  barrows,  to  listen  to  the  magic 
song  and  view  the  unprecedented  spectacle.  It  was 
only  when  the  lamb  bleated  his  last  note  that  Quixtus 
became  conscious  of  his  surroundings. 

"  Good  heavens  !  "  said  he. 

"  Do  it  again,"  said  Sheila,  in  her  clear  contralto, 
whereat  the  bystanders  laughed. 

"  Not  for  anything  in  the  world,  my  dear.  Tommy, 
take  the  infernal  thing.  My  dear,"  said  he,  lifting 
Sheila  in  his  arms,  "  if  I  know  anything  of  Tommy, 
he  will  have  that  tune  going  for  the  next  seven 
hours." 

She  allowed  herself  to  be  carried  in  seraphic  content 
to  the  entrance  of  the  car  in  which  was  the  compart- 
ment reserved  for  the  party.  Tommy  carrying  the 
lamb,  Clementina  and  Etta  followed. 

"  That  kid's  a  wonder,"  said  Tommy.  "  She  would 
creep  into  the  heart  of  a  parsnip." 

Clementina,  to  whom  the  remark  was  addressed, 
walked  three  or  four  steps  in  silence.  Then  she  said  : 

"  Tommy,  if  I  hear  you  say  a  thing  like  that  again, 
I'll  box  your  ears." 

He  stared  at  her  in  amazement.  He  had  paid  a 
spontaneous  and  sincere  tribute  to  the  child  over  whom 
she  had  gone  crazy.  What  more  could  she  want  ? 
She  moved  a  step  in  advance,  leaving  him  free  to  jus- 


282     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

tify  himself  with  Etta,  who  agreed  with  him  in  the 
proposition  that  Clementina  for  the  last  two  days  was 
in  a  very  cranky  mood.  Very  natural,  the  proposition 
of  the  two  innocents.  How  could  they  divine  that  the 
moisture  in  Clementina's  eyes  had  nothing  whatsoever 
to  do  with  Sheila's  appreciation  of  the  vocal  lamb  or 
her  readiness  to  be  carried  by  Quixtus  ?  How  could 
they  divine  that,  at  the  possibility  of  which  the  cruelty 
and  insolence  of  youth  would  have  caused  them  both 
to  shriek  with  inextinguishable  laughter?  And  how 
was  Tommy,  generous  hearted  lad  that  he  was,  to 
know  that  this  one  unperceptive  speech  of  his  sent  him 
hurtling  out  of  the  land  of  Romance  down  to  common 
earth  ?  Henceforward  Tommy,  whilst  retaining  his 
chamber  in  Clementina's  heart,  was  to  walk  in  and  out 
just  as  he  chose.  Not  the  tiniest  pang  was  he  again 
to  cause  her.  But  what  could  Tommy  know — what 
can  you  or  I  or  any  other  male  thing  ever  born  know 
of  a  woman  ?  We  walk,  good  easy  men,  with  confi- 
dent and  careless  tread  through  the  familiar  garden, 
and  then  suddenly  terra  firma  miraculously  ceases  to 
exist,  and  head-over-heels  we  go  down  a  precipice. 
How  came  it  that  we  were  unaware  of  its  existence  ? 
Mystere  !  Who  could  interpret  the  soul  of  La  Gia- 
conda  ?  Leonardo  da  Vinci  least  of  all.  It  is  all  very 
well  to  give  a  man  a  vote  ;  he  is  a  transparent  animal, 
and  you  know  the  way  the  dunderhead  is  going  to  use 
it  ;  but  the  incalculable  and  pyrotechnic  way  in  which 
women  will  use  it  will  make  humanity  blink.  Let  us 
therefore  pardon  Tommy  for  staring  in  amazement  at 
Clementina.  He  sought  refuge  in  Etta.  From  Scylla, 
perhaps,  to  Charybdis  ;  but,  for  the  present,  Charybdis 
sat  smiling  under  her  fig-tree,  the  most  innocent  and 
bewitching  monster  in  the  world. 

Leaving  the   three   children   in   the   compartment, 
Clementina   and   Quixtus   walked,    for  the   last   few 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     283 

moments  before  the  train  started,  up  and  down  the 
platform. 

"  I  suppose  you'll  soon  be  coming  back  to  Lon- 
don ?"  said  Clementina. 

"  I  think  so,"  said  he.  "  Now  that  the  Grand  Prix 
is  over  Paris  is  emptying  rapidly." 

"  Parrot  !  "  thought  Clementina,  once  more  con- 
founding the  instructress  ;  but  she  said  blandly  : 
"  What  difference  in  the  world  can  it  make  to  you 
whether  Paris  is  empty  or  not?" 

He  smiled  good-naturedly.  "  To  tell  the  honest 
truth,  none.  Yes.  I  must  be  getting  home  again." 

"  Of  course  there'll  be  a  certain  amount  of  worry 
over  Hammersley's  affairs,"  she  said  ;  "  but  I  hope 
you've  got  something  else  to  do  to  occupy  your  mind." 

"  I  want  to  settle  down  to  systematic  work,"  replied 
Quixtus. 

"  What  kind  of  work  ?  " 

"  Well,"  said  he,  with  an  apologetic  air,  "  1  mean 
to  extend  my  little  handbook  on  '  The  Household  Arts 
of  the  Neolithic  Age  '  into  an  authoritative  and  com- 
prehensive treatise.  I've  been  gathering  material  for 
years.  I'm  anxious  to  begin." 

"  Begin  to-morrow,"  said  Clementina.  "  And  when- 
ever you  feel  lonely  come  and  read  bits  of  it  to  Sheila 
and  me." 

And  thus  came  about  the  surprising  and  monstrous 
alliance  between  Clementina  and  Prehistoric  Man.. 
Dead  men's  jawbones  had  some  use  after  all. 

"  En  voiture  ! "  cried  the  guard. 

"  Good-bye,  my  dear  Clementina,"  said  Quixtus, 
"  we  have  had  a  memorable  meeting." 

"  We  have  indeed.  You  are  sending  away  three 
very  happy  people." 

"  Why  not  four  ?  " 

But  she  only  smiled  wryly  and  said  :    "  Good-bye, 


284     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

God  bless  you.  And  keep  out  of  mischief,"  and  clam- 
bered into  the  train. 

The  train  began  to  move,  to  the  faint  strains  of  the 
"  Jewel  Song  "  in  Faust,  and  Sheila  blew  him  kisses 
from  the  carriage  window.  He  responded  until  the 
little  white  face  disappeared.  Then  he  thought  of 
Clementina. 

"  The  very  best,  but  the  most  enigmatic  woman  in 
the  world,"  said  he. 

Which  was  a  very  sweeping  statement  for  a  man  of 
his  scientific  accuracy. 

Entirely  ignorant  of  the  word  of  the  enigma,  he 
went  back  to  the  spotless  flower  of  insulted  woman- 
hood, who  took  him  off  to  lunch  with  her  French 
friends.  She  welcomed  his  undivided  homage.  That 
fishfag  of  a  creature,  as  she  characterised  Clementina 
in  conversation  with  Lady  Louisa,  made  her  feel  un- 
comfortable. Even  now  that  she  had  gone,  the  prob- 
lem of  Quixtus's  removal  from  her  sphere  of  influence 
remained.  The  child  was  the  stake  to  which  he  was 
fettered  within  that  sphere.  Could  she  break  the 
chains  ?  Therein  seemed  to  lie  the  only  solution — 
unless  by  audacity  and  adroitness  she  uprooted  the 
stake  and  carried  it,  with  Quixtus,  chains  and  all,  into 
her  own  territory. 

She  had  a  talk  after  lunch  with  Huckaby.  The 
luncheon-party  had  broken  up  into  groups  of  two  or 
three,  who  wandered  about  the  cool  enclosure  of  the 
Bois  de  Boulogne  restaurant  where  the  feast  had  been 
given,  and,  half  by  chance,  half  by  design,  the  T.AVO 
had  joined  company.  Their  conversation  on  the  even- 
ing of  Quixtus's  departure  from  Paris  had  deeply 
affected  their  mutual  relations.  Each  felt  conscious 
of  presenting  a  less  tarnished  front  to  the  other,  and 
each,  not  hypocritically,  began  to  assume  a  little  halo 
of  virtue  in  the  pathetic  hope  that  the  other  would 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     285 

be  impressed  by  its  growing  radiance.  During  the 
few  days  of  Quixtus's  absence  they  had  become  friends 
and  exchanged  confidences.  Huckaby  convinced  her 
of  the  sincerity  of  his  desire  to  reform.  He  described 
his  life.  He  had  worked  when  work  came  his  way — 
but  work  has  a  curious  habit  of  shrinking  from  the 
drunkard's  way  ;  a  bit  of  teaching,  a  bit  of  free-lance 
journalism,  a  bit  of  hack  compilation  in  the  British 
Museum  ;  he  had  borrowed  far  and  wide  ;  he  had  not 
been  over-scrupulous  on  the  point  of  financial  honour. 
Hunger  had  driven  him.  Lena  Fontaine  shivered  at 
the  horrors  through  which  he  had  struggled.  All  he 
desired  was  cleanliness  in  life  and  body  and  surround- 
ings. She  understood.  Material  cleanliness  had  been 
and  would  be  hers  ;  but  cleanliness  of  life  she  yearned 
for  as  much  as  he  did.  But  for  him,  the  man,  with 
the  given  boon  of  honourable  employment,  it  was  an 
easy  matter.  For  her,  the  woman,  tired  and  soul-sick, 
what  avenue  lay  open  ?  She,  in  her  turn,  told  him 
of  incidents  in  her  career  at  which  he  shuddered. 
"  Throw  it  up,  throw  it  up,"  he  counselled.  She 
smiled  bitterly.  What  could  be  the  end  of  the  bird 
of  prey  who  assumed  the  habits  of  the  dove  ?  She 
could  marry,  he  replied,  before  it  was  too  late.  Marry, 
ay  !  But  whom  ?  She  had  not  dared  confide  to  him 
her  hope.  So  close,  however,  being  their  relations, 
Huckaby  had  not  failed  to  acquaint  her  with  the  im- 
portant scope  of  his  conversation  with  Quixtus  the 
day  before.  Quixtus's  changed  demeanour,  obvious 
to  her  at  once,  confirmed  his  announcement.  She  wel- 
comed it  with  more  joy  than  Huckaby  could  appreciate- 
For  behind  the  pity  that  ftail  paralysed  beak  and  talon, 
the  new-born  hope  and  the  curious  liking  she  had  con- 
ceived for  the  mild,  crazy  gentleman,  stalked  the  in- 
stinctive aversion  which  the  sane  feel  towards  those 
whose  wits  have  gone  ever  so  little  astray.  The  news 


286     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

had  come  as  an  immense  relief.  Now  she  could  meet 
him  on  normal  ground.  All  was  fair. 

They  found  two  chairs  by  a  little  table  under  a  tree, 
at  the  back  of  the  Chalet  Restaurant  and  secluded 
from  the  gaiety  and  laughter  of  the  front.  Nothing 
human  was  in  sight  save,  through  the  tall,  masking 
acacias  and  shrubs,  the  white  gleams  of  cooks  and 
hurrying,  aproned  waiters. 

"  Let  us  sit,"  she  said.  "  How  good  it  is  to  get  a 
little  cool  and  quiet.  This  vie  de  cabaret  is  getting  on 
my  nerves.  I'm  weary  to  death  of  it." 

Huckaby  laughed.  "  It's  still  enough  novelty  to 
me  to  be  pleasant." 

She  accepted  a  cigarette.  They  smoked  for  a 
while. 

"  How's  goodness  getting  on  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  By  leaps  and  bounds  daily.  I'm  becoming  a 
fanatical  believer  in  the  copy-book.  I'm  virtuous. 
I'm  happy.  Industry  is  a  virtue.  My  virtue  is  to  be 
rewarded  by  industry.  Therefore  virtue  is  its  own 
reward." 

"  What  industry  ?  " 

"  I'm  going  to  collaborate  with  our  friend  in  the 
new  book  he's  talking  about,"  replied  Huckaby,  with 
a  surviving  touch  of  boastfulness.  "  There  is  also  a 
possibility  of  my  taking  over  the  secretaryship  of  the 
Anthropological  Society." 

"  You're  lucky,"  said  Lena  Fontaine. 

"  How's  goodness  with  you  ?  " 

"  The  usual  slump.  Shares  going  dirt  cheap.  No 
one  seems  to  have  any  use  for  virtue  in  a  woman." 

"  Husbands  seem  to  have,  as  I've  already  suggested 
to  you." 

"  Have  you  any  particular  husband  to  suggest  ?  " 

He  cast  on  her  a  glance  of  admiration,  for  in  her 
outward  seeming  she  was  an  object  for  any  man's  for- 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     287 

givable  desire,  and  he  said  in  a  tone  not  wholly  of 
banter  : 

"  The  humble  individual  in  front  of  you  would  have 
no  chance,  I  suppose  ?  " 

She  laughed.     "  None  whatever." 

;t  You'll  pardon  my  presumption  in  making-  the 
offer  ;  but  could  I,  en  galant  homme,  do  otherwise  ?" 

"  No,"  she  replied,  good-humouredly,  "  you  couldn't. 

If  you  had  five  thousand  a  year,  it  would  give  me  to 

think,   for  you're  not    unsympathetic.      But    as    you 

.haven't,   I've  no    use    for   you — as   a  husband,    bien 

entendu." 

It  was  a  jest.  They  laughed.  Presently  a  cloud 
obscured  the  sunshine  of  her  laughter.  She  leaned 
over  the  table. 

"  Eustace  Huckaby,  are  you  or  are  you  not  my 
friend  ?  " 

For  once  in  her  dealings  with  a  man  whose  goodwill 
she  desperately  craved,  she  was  sincere.  She  dropped 
the  conscious  play  of  glance  and  tone  ;  but  she  forgot 
the  liquid  splendour  of  her  eyes  and  the  dangerous 
nearness  of  her  face  to  his. 

"  Your  friend  ?  "  he  cried,  laying  his  hand  on  her 
wrist.  "  Can  you  doubt  it  ?  I  am  indeed.  I  swear  it." 

"  Do  you  know  why  I'm  staying  here — apparently 
wasting  my  time  ?  " 

"  I've  supposed  something  was  up  ;  but  my  supposi- 
tion seemed  too  absurd  !  " 

"  Why  absurd  ?  " 

"  Quixtus  as  a  husband  ?  " 

"  Yes.     Why  not  ?  " 

He  released  her  wrist  and  fell  back  in  his  chair.  He 
frowned  and  tugged  at  his  beard. 

"  Do  you  care  for  him  ?  " 

"  Yes.  In  a  way.  I  sincerely  do.  If  you  mean — 
have  I  fallen  desperately  in  love  with  him  ? — well,  I 


288     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

haven't.  That  would  be  absurd.  It's  not  my  habit  to 
fall  in  love." 

"  What  would  you  get  out  of  it  ?  " 

She  made  an  impatient  gesture.  "  Rest.  Peace. 
Happiness.  He's  a  wealthy  man  and  would  give  me 
all  the  comfort  I  need.  I  couldn't  face  poverty.  And 
he  would  be  kind  to  me." 

"  And  he — pardon  the  brutality  of  my  question — 
what  would  he  get  out  of  it  ?  " 

"  I'm  a  lady,  after  all,"  she  said,  "  and  I  know  how 
to  run  a  large  house — and  as  a  woman  I'm  not  unat- 
tractive. And  I'd  run  straight.  Temperamentally  I 
am  straight.  That's  frank.  Whatever  impulses  I've 
had  within  me  with  regard  to  running  off  the  rails 
have  been  the  other  way.  Oh,  God,  yes,"  she  added, 
with  a  little  shiver  and  averted  eyes,  "  I'd  run  straight." 

"  What  about  ghosts  of  the  past  rising  up  and 
queering  things  ?  " 

"  I'd  take  my  chance.  I've  bluffed  myself  out  of 
tight  places  already,  and  I  could  bluff  again." 

Huckaby  lit  another  cigarette.  "  He  looks  on  you 
as  a  spotless  angel  of  purity,"  said  he.  "  If  he  married 
you  on  that  assumption,  and  learned  things  afterwards, 
there  would  be  the  devil  to  pay.  He's  been  hit  like 
that  already,  and  he  went  off  his  head.  I  shouldn't 
like  him  to  have  another  experience.  Why  not  tell  him 
something — just  a  little  ?  " 

She  raised  both  hands  in  nervous  protest.  "  Oh, 
no,  no.  The  woman  who  does  that  is  a  fool.  It  never 
comes  off.  Let  him  take  me  for  what  he  thinks  I  am, 
and  I'll  see  that  I  remain  so.  Trust  me.  It  will  be 
all  right.  You're  the  only  impediment." 

"I  ?  " 

"  Of  course.  You  have  it  in  your  power  to  give  me 
away  at  any  time.  That's  why  I  asked  you  whether 
you  were  my  friend." 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     289 

Huckaby  tugged  at  his  beard,  and  pondered  deeply. 
He  meant,  with  all  the  fresh  energy  of  new  resolve, 
to  be  loyal  to  Quixtus.  But  how  could  he  stand  in 
the  way  of  a  woman  seeking  salvation  ?  Moral  sense, 
however,  is  a  plant  of  gradual  growth.  Huckaby's 
as  yet  was  not  adequate  to  the  solution  of  the  perplex- 
ing problem.  Lena  Fontaine  held  out  her  hand,  palm 
upward,  across  the  table. 

"  Speak,"  she  said. 

He  took  her  hand  and  pressed  it. 

"  I'll  be  your  friend  in  this,"  said  he. 

She  thanked  him  with  her  eyes,  and  rose. 

"  Let  us  go  back  to  the  others,  or  they'll  think  we're 
having  a  horrible  flirtation." 

On  this  and  on  the  succeeding  days  she  discovered 
a  subtle  change  in  Quixtus's  attitude  towards  her. 
His  manner  had  grown,  if  possible,  more  courteous  ; 
it  betrayed  a  more  delicate  admiration,  a  more  graceful 
homage  to  the  beautiful  and  charming  woman.  Be- 
fore his  Marseilles  visit  she  had  found  it  an  easy  task 
to  appeal  to  the  fool  that  grins  in  every  man.  A  trick 
of  eyes  and  voice  was  enough  to  set  him  love-making 
in  what  she  had  termed  the  Quixtine  manner.  Now 
the  task  was  more  difficult.  She  found  herself  con- 
fronted by  a  greater  sensitiveness  that  did  not  respond 
to  the  obvious  invitation.  He  was  up  in  the  clouds, 
more  chivalrous,  more  idealistic.  With  a  sigh,  she 
gathered  her  skirts  together  and  climbed  to  the  higher 
plane. 

And  all  this  on  Quixtus's  part  was  sheer  remorse — 
atonement  for  the  unspeakable  insult.  The  thought 
of  having  dared  to  make  coarse  love  to  this  exquisite 
creature  filled  him  with  horrified  dismay.  That  the 
lady  had  appeared  rather  to  like  the  coarse  love-mak- 
ing he  did  not  stop  to  consider.  Certainly,  in  his  crazy 
exultation,  he  had  proclaimed  her  a  fruit  ripe  to  his 


.j9o     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

hand,  but  that  was  only  an  additional  vulgarity  which 
had  stained  that  peculiar  phase  of  his  being.  The  re- 
sult of  the  reaction  was  to  accentuate  the  reverential 
conception  of  woman,  which,  by  reason  of  a  tempera- 
ment dreamy  and  poetic  and  of  a  scholarly  life  remote 
from  the  disillusionising  conflicts  of  sex,  he  had  always 
entertained.  He  comported  himself  therefore  towards 
her  with  scrupulous  delicacy,  resolved  that  not  a  word 
or  intonation  that  could  be  construed  into  an  affront 
should  ever  pass  his  lips. 

The  fine  weather  broke.  Torrential  rains  swept 
Paris.  The  meteorologists  talked  learnedly  about  cy- 
clonic disturbances  in  the  Atlantic  which  would  affect 
the  weather  adversely  for  some  time  to  come.  Lena 
Fontaine  began  to  reflect.  Summer  Paris  in  rain  is 
no  place  for  junketing,  even  on  the  high  planes.  It 
offers  to  the  visitor  nothing  but  the  boredom  of  hotel 
and  restaurant.  She  knew  the  elementary  axiom  of 
sex  relations,  that  the  woman  who  bores  a  man  is 
lost.  The  high  planes  were  all  right  when  you  looked 
down  from  them  on  charming  objective  things  ;  but, 
after  all,  a  man  has  to  be  amused,  and  fun  on  the  high 
planes  is  a  humour  dangerously  attenuated.  She  an- 
noutnced  an  immediate  departure  from  Paris. 

"  If  you  would  accept  the  escort  of  Huckaby  and 
myself,  we  should  be  honoured,"  said  Quixtus.  "  Un- 
less, of  course,  we  should  be  in  the  way." 

She  laughed.  "  My  dear  friend,  did  you  ever  hear 
of  men  being  in  the  way  when  women  were  travelling  ? 
A  lone  woman  is  never  more  conspicuously  lonesome 
than  en  voyage.  All  the  other  women  around  who 
have  men  to  look  after  them  look  at  one  with  a  kind 
of  patronising  pity,  as  though  they  said  :  '  Poor  thing 
that  can't  rake  up  a  man  from  anywhere/  And  it 
makes  one  want  to  scratch." 

"  Does  it  really  ?  "  smiled  Quixtus. 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     291 

"  It  does."  She  laughed  again  and  sighed.  "  A 
lone  woman  has  much  to  put  up  with.  Malicious 
tongues  not  the  least." 

"  My  dear  Mrs.  Fontaine,"  said  he,  "  what  tongue 
could  be  so  malicious  as  to  speak  evil  of  you  ?  " 

"  There  are  thousands  in  this  gossipy  world.  Our 
little  friendship  and  camaraderie  of  the  last  fortnight 
— sweetness  and  innocence  itself — who  knows  what 
interpretation  slanderers  might  put  on  it  ?  " 

Ouixtus  flushed,  and  drew  his  gaunt  body  to  its  full 
height.  "  I'm  not  pugilistic  by  habit,"  said  he,  "  but  if 
any  man  made  such  an  insinuation,  I  should  knock 
him  down." 

"  It  would  be  more  likely  a  woman." 

"  Then,"  said  he,  "  I  think  I  could  manage  to  convey 
to  her,  without  brutality,  that  she  was  a  disgrace  to 
her  sex." 

She  fluttered  a  glance  at  him.  "I  should  like  to 
have  you  always  as  a  champion." 

"  If  I  understand  the  word  gentleman  aright,"  said 
Quixtus,  "  he  is  always  the  champion  of  the  unpro- 
tected woman." 

His  tone  assured  her  that  this  Early- Victorian  senti- 
ment was  not  mere  gallantry.  He  meant  it,  indignant 
still  at  the  idea  of  misconstruction  of  their  friend- 
ship. 

"  I  happen  to  be  a  woman,"  she  said-  "  and  seek 
the  particular  rather  than  the  general.  I  said  my 
champion,  Dr.  Quixtus.  Now  don't  say  that  the 
greater  includes  the  less,  or  I  shall  fall  *hrough  the 
floor." 

He  was  too  much  in  earnest  to  smile  »with  her  in 
her  coquetry. 

"  Mrs.  Fontaine,"  said  he,  with  a  bow,  "  no  cwie  will 
ever  dare  speak  evil  of  you  in  my  presence." 

She  rose — they  were  sitting  in  the  lounge 


292    THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

"  Thank  you,"  she  said,  falling  in  with  his  earnest 
mood.  "  Thank  you.  I  shall  go  back  to  London  with 
a  light  heart." 

And  like  a  wise  woman,  she  cut  short  the  conversa- 
tion, and  went  upstairs  to  dress  for  dinner. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

JULY  brought  in  halcyon  days  for  everybody. 
They  were  halcyon  days  for  Clementina. 
There  were  neglected  portraits  to  complete,  new 
sitters  for  whom  to  squeeze  in  appointments,  a  host  of 
stimulating  things,  not  the  least  of  which  was  the 
beloved  atmosphere,  half-turpentine,  half-poetry,  of 
the  studio.  Only  the  painter  can  know  the  delight  of 
the  mere  feel  of  the  long-forsaken  brush,  and  the  sight 
of  the  blobs  of  colour  oozing  out  from  the  tubes  on  to 
the  palette.  Most  of  us,  returning  to  toil  after  holiday, 
sigh  over  departed  joys.  To  the  painter  the  joy  of 
getting  back  to  his  easel  is  worth  all  the  joys  that  have 
departed.  Clementina  plunged  into  work  as  a  long- 
stranded  duck  plunges  into  water.  By  rising  at  dawn, 
a  practice  contrary  to  her  habit,  she  managed  to  keep 
pace  with  her  work  and  to  attend  to  the  various  affairs 
which  her  new  responsibilities  entailed.  Her  days 
were  filled  to  overflowing,  and  filled  with  extraordi- 
nary happiness.  A  nurse  was  engaged  for  Sheila,  a 
kind  and  buxom  widow  who  also  found  herself  living 
in  halcyon  days.  She  could  do  practically  whatever 
she  liked,  as  her  charge  was  seldom  in  her  company. 
The  child  had  her  being  in  the  studio,  playing  happily 
and  quietly  in  a  corner,  thus  realising  Clementina's 
dream,  or  watching  her  paint,  with  great,  wondering 
eyes.  The  process  fascinated  her.  She  would  sit  for 
an  hour  at  a  time,  good  as  gold,  absorbed  in  the  magic 
of  the  brush-strokes,  clasping  the  dingy  Pinkie  tight 
against  her  bosom.  Tommy  appeared  one  day  witK 

293 


294     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

a  box  of  paints,  a  miniature  easel,  and  a  great  mass  of 
uncoloured  fashion-plates  of  beautiful  ladies  in  gorge- 
ous raiment.  A  lesson  or  two  inspired  Sheila  with  ar- 
tistic zeal,  so  that  often  a  sitter  would  come  upon  the 
two  of  them  painting  breathlessly.  Clementina  screw- 
ing up  her  eyes,  darting  backwards  and  forwards  to 
her  canvas,  and  the  dainty  child  seated  on  a  milking- 
stool  and  earnestly  making  animated  rainbows  of  the 
beautiful  ladies  in  the  fashion-plates. 

Then  there  was  the  tedious  process  of  obtaining  pro- 
bate of  Hammersley's  will.  Luckily,  he  had  wound 
up  all  his  affairs  in  Shanghai,  to  the  common  satisfac- 
tion of  himself  and  his  London  house,  so  that  no 
complications  arose  from  the  latter  quarter.  Indeed, 
the  firm  gave  the  executors  its  cordial  assistance.  But 
the  London  house  had  to  be  interviewed,  and  lawyers 
had  to  be  interviewed,  and  Quixtus  and  all  kinds  of 
other  people,  and  papers  had  to  be  read  and  signed,  and 
affidavits  to  be  made,  and  head-splitting  intricacies  of 
business  and  investments  to  be  mastered.  All  this  ate 
up  many  of  the  sunny  hours. 

Tommy  and  Etta  had  halcyon  days  of  their  own, 
which,  but  by  the  free  use  of  curmudgeonly  roughness, 
would  have  merged  into  Clementina's.  Etta  had 
cajoled  an  infuriated  admiral,  raving  round  the  room 
after  a  horsewhip,  into  a  stern  parent  who  consented 
to  receive  Tommy,  explicitly  reserving  to  himself  the 
right  to  throw  him  out  of  window  should  the  young 
man  not  take  his  fancy.  Tommy  called  and  was 
allowed  to  depart  peacefully  by  the  front  door.  Then 
Quixtus,  incited  thereto  by  Tommy,  called  upon  the 
Admiral  with  the  awful  solemnity  of  a  father  in  a 
French  play,  with  the  result  that  Tommy  was  invited 
to  dinner  at  the  Admiral's  and  given  as  much  excellent 
old  port  as  he  could  stand.  After  which  the  Admiral 
called  on  Clementina,  whom  he  had  not  met  before. 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     295, 

During  the  throes  of  horsewhip  hunting  he  had  threat- 
ened to  visit  her  there  and  then  and  give  her  a  piece 
of  his  mind — which  at  that  moment  was  more  like  a 
hunk  of  molten  lava  than  anything  else.  But  the  arts 
and  wiles  of  Etta  had  prevailed  so  "that  the  above 
scheduled  sequence  of  events  had  been  observed. 
Clementina,  caught  in  the  middle  of  a  hot  afternoon's 
painting,  received  him,  bedaubed  and  bedraggled,  in 
the  studio,  whose  chaos  happened  to  be  that  day  more 
than  usually  confounded.  The  Admiral,  accustomed 
to  the  point-device  females  of  his  world,  and  making 
the  spick  and  span  of  the  quarter-deck  a  matter  of 
common  morality  in  material  surroundings,  went  from 
Romney  Place  an  obfuscated  man. 

"  I  can't  make  your  friend  out,"  he  said  to  Etta. 
"  I  don't  mind  telling  you  that  if  I  had  seen  her,  I 
should  never  have  allowed  you  to  visit  her.  I  found 
her  looking  more  like  a  professional  rabbit-skinner 
than  a  lady,  and  when  I  went  to  sit  down  I  had  to  clear 
away  a  horrid  plate  of  half-finished  cold  pie,  by 
George,  from  the  chair.  She  contradicted  me  flatly  in 
everything  I  said  about  you — as  if  I  didn't  know  my 
own  child — and  filled  me  up  with  advice." 

"  And  wasn't  it  good,  dear  ?  " 

"  No  advice  is  ever  good.  Like  Nebuchadnezzar's 
food,  it  may  be  wholesome  but  it  isn't  good.  And 
then  she  turned  round  and  talked  the  most  downright 
common  sense  about  women  I've  ever  heard  a  woman 
utter.  And  then,  by  Jove,  I  don't  know  how  it  hap- 
pened— I  never  talk  shop,  you  know " 

"  Of  course  you  don't,  dear,  never,"  said  Etta. 

"  Of  course  I  don't — but  somehow  we  got  on  to 
the  subject,  and  she  showed  a  more  intelligent  appre- 
ciation of  the  state  of  naval  affairs  than  any  man  I've 
met  for  a  long  time  !  As  for  those  superficial  theo- 
retical donkeys  at  the  Club " 


296     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

"  And  what  else,  darling  ? "  said  Etta,  who  had 
often  heard  about  the  donkeys,  but  now  was  dying  to 
hear  about  Clementina.  "  Do  tell  me  what  she  talked 
about.  She  must  have  talked  about  me.  Didn't 
she?" 

"  About  you  !    I've  told  you."     He  took  her  chin 
in  his  hand — she  was  sitting  on  a  footstool,  her  armsJ 
about  his  knee. 

"  You  can't  have  told  me  everything,  dear." 

"  I  think  she  informed  me  that  her  selection  of  a 
husband  for  you  was  a  damned  sight  better  than 
mine — I  beg  your  pardon,  my  dear,  she  didn't  say 
'damned' — and  then  the  little  girl  you're  always 
talking  of  came  in,  and  the  rabbit-skinner  seemed  to 
turn  into  an  ordinary  sort  of  woman  and  took  me  up, 
and,  in  a  way,  threw  me  down  on  the  floor  to  play 
with  the  child." 

"  What  did  you  play  at,  dad  ?  When  I  was  little 
you  used  to  pretend  to  swallow  a  fork.  Did  you  swal- 
low a  fork  ?  " 

The  iron  features  relaxed  into  a  smile. 

"  I  did,  my  dear,  and  it  was  the  cold  pie  fork,  wiped 
on  a  bit  of  newspaper.  And  last  of  all,  what  do  you 
think  she  said  ?" 

"  No  one  on  earth  could  guess,  dear,  what  Clemen- 
tina might  have  said." 

"  She  actually  asked  me  to  sit  for  a  crayon  sketch. 
Said  my  face  was  interesting  to  her  as  an  artist,  and 
she  would  like  to  make  a  study  of  it  for  her  own 
pleasure.  Now  what  pleasure  could  anybody  on  earth 
find  in  looking  at  my  ugly  old  mug  ?  " 

"  But,  dear,  you  have  a  most  beautiful  mug,"  cried 
Etta.  "  I  don't  mean  beautiful  like  the  photographs 
of  popular  actors — but  full  of  strength  and  character 
— just  the  fine  face  that  appeals  to  the  artist." 

"  Do  you  think  so  ?  "  asked  the  Admiral. 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     297 

"  I'm  sure."  She  ran  to  a  little  table  and  brought 
a  Florentine  mirror.  "  Look." 

He  looked.  Instinctively  the  man  of  sixty-five 
touched  the  finely-curving  grizzled  hair  about  his 
temples. 

"  You're  a  silly  child,"  said  he. 

She  kissed  him.  "  Now  confess.  You  had  the  good- 
est  of  good  times  with  Clementina  this  afternoon." 

"  I  don't  mind  owning,"  said  the  Admiral,  "  that  I 
found  her  a  most  intelligent  woman." 

And  that  is  the  way  that  all  of  us  sons  of  Adam, 
even  Admirals  of  the  British  Fleet,  can  be  beguiled  by 
the  daughters  of  Eve. 

Halcyon  days  were  they  for  Quixtus,  for  whom 
London  wore  an  entirely  different  aspect  from  the 
Aceldama  he  had  left.  Instead  of  its  streets  and 
squares  stretching  out  before  him  as  the  scene  of 
potential  deviltry,  it  smiled  upon  him  as  the  centre  of 
manifold  pleasant  interests.  He  had  the  great  work 
to  attack,  the  final  picture  that  mortal  knowledge  could 
draw  of  that  far  off,  haunting  phase  of  human  life 
before  the  startling  use  of  iron  was  known  to  mankind. 
It  was  not  to  be  a  dull  catalogue  of  dead  things.  The 
dead  things,  a  million  facts,  were  to  be  the  skeleton 
on  which  he  would  build  his  great  vivid  flesh-and-blood 
story — the  dream  of  his  life,  which  only  now  did  he 
feel  the  vital  impulse  to  realise.  He  had  his  club  and 
his  cronies,  harmless  folk,  beneath  whose  mild  exterior 
he  no  longer  divined  horrible  corruption.  From  them 
all  he  received  congratulations  on  his  altered  mien. 
The  change  had  done  him  good.  He  was  looking  ten 
years  younger.  Some  chaffed  him,  after  the  way  of 
men.  Wonderful  place,  Paris.  He  found  a  stimulat- 
ing interest  in  his  new  responsibilities.  Vestiges  of  his 
perfunctory  legal  training  remained  and  enabled  him 
to  unravel  simple  complications  in  the  Hammersley 


298     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

affairs,  much  to  Clementina's  admiration  and  his  own 
satisfaction.  He  discovered  a  pleasure  once  more  in 
the  occasional  society  of  Tommy,  and  concerned  him- 
self seriously  with  his  love-making  and  his  painting. 
He  spoke  of  him  to  Dawkins,  the  rich  donor  of  the 
Anthropological  Society  portrait,  to  whom  Tommy  had 
alluded  with  such  disrespect  to  Clementina.  Dawkins 
visited  Tommy's  studio  and  walked  away  with  a  couple 
of  pictures,  after  having  paid  such  a  price  as  to  make 
the  young  man  regard  him  as  a  fairy  godfather  in  vast 
white  waistcoat  and  baggy  trousers.  Ouixtus  also 
entertained  Tommy  and  Etta  at  lunch  at  the  Carlton, 
Mrs.  Fontaine  completing  the  quartette.  "  I  should 
have  liked  it  better,"  said  Clementina,  when  she  heard 
of  the  incident  (as  she  heard  all  that  happened  to  the 
lovers),  "I  should  have  liked  it  better  if  he  hadn't 
brought  Mrs.  Fontaine  into  it."  Whereat  Tommy 
winked  at  Etta,  unbeknown  to  Clementina. 

Quixtus's  friendship  with  the  spotless  flower  of 
womanhood  continued.  He  had  tea  with  her  in  her 
prettily-furnished  little  house  in  Pont  Street,  where  he 
met  several  of  her  acquaintances,  people  of  unquestion- 
able position  in  the  London  world,  and  attended  one 
or  two  receptions  and  even  a  dance  at  which  she  was 
present.  Very  skilfully  she  drew  him  into  her  circle 
and  adroitly  played  him  in  public  as  a  serious  aspirant 
to  her  spotless  hand.  There  were  many  who  called 
him  the  variegated  synonyms  of  a  fool,  for  to  hard- 
bitten worldlings  few  illusions  are  left  concerning  a 
woman  like  Lena  Fontaine  ;  but  they  shrugged  their 
shoulders  cynically,  and  viewed  the  capture  with 
amused  interest.  Only  the  most  jaded  complained.  If 
she  wanted  to  give  them  a  sensation,  why  did  she  not 
go  a  step  further  and  lead  about  a  bishop  on  hei 
string  ?  But  these  uncharitable  remarks  did  not  reach 
Quixtus's  ears.  The  word  went  round  that  he  was  a 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     299 

man  of  distinguished  scientific  position — whether  he 
was  a  metallurgist  or  a  brain  specialist  no  one  at  the 
tired  end  of  the  London  season  either  knew  or  cared 
to  know — and,  his  courtly  and  scholarly  demeanour 
confirming  the  rumour,  the  corner  of  Vanity  Fair  in 
which  Lena  Fontaine  fought  to  hold  her  position  paid 
him  considerable  deference.  The  flattery  of  the  frivo- 
lous pleased  him,  as  it  has  pleased  many  a  good  simple 
man  before  him.  He  thought  Mrs.  Fontaine's  friends 
very  charming,  though  perhaps  not  over-intellectual 
people.  He  went  among  them,  however,  scarce  know- 
ing why.  A  card  of  invitation  would  come  by  post 
from  Lady  Anything,  whom  he  had  once  met.  Before 
he  had  time  to  obey  his  first  impulse  and  decline,  Lena 
Fontaine's  voice  would  be  heard  over  the  telephone. 

Are  you  going  to  Lady  Anything's  on  Friday  ?  " 

I  don't  think  so." 

She  has  asked  you,  I  know.     I'm  going." 

Oh  ?" 

Do  come.  Lady  Anything  tells  me  she  has  got 
some  interesting  people  to  meet  you  ;  and  I  shall  be 
so  miserable  if  you're  not  there." 

Who  was  he  to  cause  misery  to  the  spotless  lady  ? 
The  victim  yielded,  and  blandly  unconscious  of  femi- 
nine guile  was  paraded  before  the  interesting  people 
as  the  latest  and  most  lasting  conquest  of  Lena  Fon- 
taine's bow  and  spear. 

August  plans  were  discussed.  She  was  thinking  of 
Dinard.  What  was  Quixtus  proposing  to  do  ?  He 
had  not  considered  the  question.  Had  contemplated 
work  in  London.  She  held  up  her  hands.  London  in 
August  !  How  could  he  exist  in  the  stuffy  place  ? 
He  needed  a  real  holiday. 

"  To  tell  you  the  truth,  I  don't  know  where  to  go," 
said  he. 

Very  delicately  she  suggested  Dinard.    He  objected 


300     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

in  his  shy  way.  Dinard  was  the  haunt  of  fashion  and 
frivolity. 

"  I  should  walk  about  the  place  like  a  daw  among 
peacocks,"  said  he. 

"But  why  should  you  be  a  daw  ?  Why  not  do  a 
little  peacocking  ?  Colour  in  life  would  be  good  for 
you.  And  I  would  undertake  to  keep  your  feathers 
trim." 

He  smiled,  half-allured,  half-repelled  by  the  idea  of 
strutting  among  such  gay  birds.  To  refuse  the  spot- 
less lady's  request  downright  was  an  act  of  discourtesy 
of  which  he  was  incapable.  He  gave  a  vague  and 
qualified  assent  to  the  proposal,  which  she  did  not  then 
tempt  him  to  make  more  definite.  Content  with  her 
progress,  she  bided  her  time. 

Quixtus  had  little  leisure  to  reflect  on  the  sceptical 
attitude  towards  humanity  which,  theoretically,  he  still 
maintained.  In  addition  to  all  these  hour-absorbing 
interests,  Sheila  began  to  occupy  a  considerable  place 
in  his  life.  Sometimes  he  would  call  at  Romney 
Place  ;  sometimes  Clementina  would  bring  the  child  to 
Russell  Square  ;  sometimes,  when  Clementina  was  too 
busy,  Sheila  came  in  the  nurse's  charge.  He  cleared 
out  a  large  room  at  the  top  of  the  house,  which  was 
to  be  Sheila's  nursery  when  she  took  up  her  quarters 
there.  It  needed  re-papering,  re-carpeting,  re-furnish- 
ing, he  decided.  Nothing  like  cheerful  surroundings  for 
impressionable  childhood.  With,  this  in  view,  he  car- 
ried off  Sheila  one  day  to  a  firn>of  wall-paper  dealers, 
so  that  she  could  choose  a  pattern  for  herself.  Sheila 
sat  solemnly  on  the  sofa  by  his  side  while  the  polite 
assistant  turned  over  great  strips  of  paper.  At  last  she 
decided.  A  bewildering  number  of  parrots  to  the 
square  yard,  all  with  red  bodies  and  blue  tails,  darting 
about  among  green  foliage  on  which  pink  roses  grew 
miraculously,  was  the  chosen  design.  Quixtus  hesi- 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     301 

tated  ;  but  Sheila  was  firm.  They  proudly  took  home 
a  strip  to  try  against  the  wall.  Clementina,  hearing 
from  Sheila  of  her  exploit,  rushed  up  the  next  after- 
noon to  Russell  Square,  and  blinked  her  eyes  before 
the  dazzling  thing. 

"  It's  only  you,  Ephraim,  that  could  have  taken  a 
child  of  five  to  select  wall-papers." 

"  I  will  own  that  the  result  is  disastrous,"  he  said, 
ruefully.  "  But  she  set  her  heart  upon  it." 

She  sighed.  "  You're  two  babies  together.  I  see 
I've  got  to  fix  up  that  nursery  myself."  She  looked 
at  him  with  a  woman's  delicious  pity.  What  could  a 
lone  man  know  of  the  fitting  up  of  nurseries  ? 

"  You  hear  what  your  auntie  says  ?  "  he  asked — 
the  child  was  sitting  on  his  knee.  "  We're  in  disgrace." 

"  If  you're  in  disgrace  you  go  in  the  corner,"  said 
Sheila. 

"  Let  us  go  in  the  corner,  then." 

"  If  you  hold  me  very  tight,"  said  Sheila. 

But  Clementina  came  up  and  forgave  them,  and 
kissed  the  little  face  peeping  over  Quixtus's  shoulder. 

"It  does  my  heart  good  to  see  you  with  her,"  she 
cried,  with  rare  demonstrativeness. 

It  was  true.  Sheila's  sweet  ways  with  Tommy 
and  Etta  caused  her  ever  so  little  a  pang  of  jealousy. 
Her  increasing  fondness  for  Quixtus  made  Clementina 
thrill  with  pleasure.  You  may  say  that  Clementina, 
essentially  just,  was  scrupulous  not  to  encroach  upon 
Quixtus's  legal  half-share  in  the  child's  esteem.  But  a 
sense  of  justice  is  not  an  emotion.  And  it  was  emo- 
tion, silly,  feminine,  romantic  emotion,  which  she  did 
not  try  to  explain  to  herself,  that  filled  her  eyes  with 
moisture  whenever  she  saw  the  two  happy  together. 

She  laid  her  hand  upon  the  fair  hair. 

"  Do  you  love  your  Uncle  Ephim  ?  " 

"  I  adore  him,"  said  Sheila. 


302     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

"  Your  uncle  fully  reciprocates  the  sentiment,  my 
dear,"  said  Quixtus,  his  hand  also  instinctively  rising 
to  caress  the  hair. 

So  the  hands  of  the  guardians  touched.  Clemen- 
tina  withdrew  hers  and  turned  away  quickly,  so  that 
he  should  not  see  the  flush  that  sprang  into  her  face. 

"  We  must  be  getting  home  now,  dear,"  she  said. 
"  Auntie  is  wasting  precious  daylight."  And  with  her 
old  abruptness  she  left  him. 

He  followed  her  down  the  stairs.  "  My  dear 
Clementina,"  said  he,  standing  bareheaded  at  his  front 
door,  "  I  wonder  whether  you  realise  how  Sheila  and 
yourself  light  up  this  dull  old  house  for  me." 

She  sniffed  scornfully.     "  /  light  up  ?  " 

"  You,"  said  he,  with  smiling  emphasis. 

She  looked  at  him  queerly  for  an  instant,  and  then 
went  her  way. 

The  next  time  he  saw  her,  a  few  days  afterwards, 
one  late  afternoon,  when  she  was  tired  after  a  heavy 
day's  painting,  she  railed  at  him,  with  a  return  of  her 
old  biting  mariner.  He  looked  surprised  and  pained. 
She  relented. 

"  Forgive  me,  my  good  Ephraim,"  she  said,  "  but 
I've  the  rough  luck  to  be  a  woman.  No  man  alive  can 
ever  conjecture  what  a  devil  of  a  thing  that  is  to  be." 

He  smiled.  "  You  mustn't  overwork,"  said  he.  "  A 
woman  hasn't  the  brute  strength  of  a  man." 

"  You're  delicious  ! "  she  said. 

But  she  was  kind — exceedingly  kind,  to  him  there- 
after, and  fitted  up  the  nursery  in  a  way  that  made 
the  two  babies  beam  with  delight.  So  Quixtus  lived 
halcyon  days. 

In  spite  of  qualms  of  conscience,  these  were  halcyon 
days  for  Huckaby.  He  had  already  entered  on  his 
duties  as  Quixtus' s  assistant  in  the  preparation  of  the 
monumental  work  on  "  The  Household  Arts  of  the 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     303 

Neolithic  Age."  There  were  hundreds  of  marked  pas- 
sages in  books  to  transcribe,  with  accurate  notes  of 
reference,  hundreds  of  learned  periodicals  in  all  lan- 
guages with  articles  bearing  on  the  subject  to  be  con- 
densed and  indexed,  thousands  of  notes  of  Quixtus's 
to  be  collated,  thousands  of  photographs  and  drawings 
to  be  classified.  Never  having  been  admitted  into  the 
inner  factory  of  his  patron's  work,  he  was  astonished 
at  the  enormous  amount  of  material,  the  evidence  of 
the  unsuspected  patient  labour  of  years.  He  began  to 
feel  a  new  respect  for  Quixtus,  whom  hitherto  he  had 
regarded  as  a  dilettante.  Of  course,  he  knew  that  Quix- 
tus had  a  European  reputation.  He  had  not  taken  the 
reputation  seriously.  Like  Clementina,  he  had  been 
wont  to  scoff  at  prehistoric  man.  Now  he  realised  for 
the  first  time  that  a  man  cannot  gain  a  European  repu- 
tation in  any  branch  of  human  activity  without  paying 
the  price  in  toil  ;  that  there  are  qualities  of  energy, 
brain  and  will  inherent  in  any  man  who  takes  front 
rank  ;  that  there  must  be  a  calm,  infinite  thoroughness 
in  his  work  which  is  beyond  the  power  of  the  smaller 
man.  No  wonder  his  French  colleagues  called  Quixtus 
cher  maitre,  and  deferred  to  his  judgment.  In  his 
workroom  Quixtus  was  a  great  man,  and  Huckaby, 
seeing  him  now  in  his  workroom,  recognised  the  fact. 
The  prospects  of  his  appointment  as  secretary  to 
the  Anthropological  Society  were  also  fair.  Hitherto 
the  responsibilities  of  that  position  had  been  borne  by 
one  of  the  members  in  an  honorary  capacity,  a  paid 
and  unimportant  underling  performing  the  clerical 
duties.  But  for  the  last  year  or  so  the  operations  of 
the  society  having  extended,  the  secretaryship  had 
become  too  great  a  tax  on  the  time  of  any  unpaid  and 
no  matter  how  enthusiastic  gentleman.  The  Council 
therefore  had  practically  determined  on  the  appoint- 
ment of  a  salaried  secretary,  and  were  much  impressed 


304     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

by  the  qualifications  of  the  President's  nominee.  A 
secretary  who  can  print  below  his  name  on  official 
papers  the  fact  that  he  is  a  Master  of  Arts  and  late 
Fellow  of  his  College  lends  distinction  to  any  learned 
society.  A  snuffy,  seedy,  and  crotchety  member  had 
been  put  forward  as  an  opposition  candidate.  But  his 
chances  were  small.  Huckaby's  star  was  in  the  ascen- 
dant. 

It  was  a  happy  day  for  him  when  he  moved  his 
books  and  few  other  belongings  from  the  evil  garret 
where  he  had  lived  to  modest  but  cheerful  lodgings 
near  Russell  Square.  He  looked  for  the  last  time 
around  the  room  which  had  been  the  scene  of  so  many 
degradations,  of  so  many  despairs,  of  so  many  tortur- 
ings  of  soul.  All  that  was  a  part  of  his  past  life  ;  the 
greasy  wall-paper,  the  rickety  deal  furniture,  the  filth- 
sodden,  ragged  carpet,  the  slimy  soot  on  the  window- 
sill  that  had  crept  in  from  the  circumambient  chimney- 
stacks  through  the  ill-fitting  window-sash,  the  narrow, 
rank  bed — all  that  had  been  part  and  parcel  of  his  be- 
ing. The  familiar  smell  of  uncared-for,  unclean  human 
lives  saturated  the  house.  He  shuddered  and  slammed 
the  door  and  tore  down  the  stairs.  Never  again  ! 
Never  again,  so  help  him  God  !  A  short  while  after- 
( wards  he  was  busy  arranging  his  books  in  the  bright, 
clean  sitting-room  of  his  new  lodgings,  and  a  neat  maid 
in  white  cap,  cuffs,  and  apron  brought  in  afternoon 
tea,  which  she  disposed  in  decent  fashion  on  a  little 
table.  When  she  had  gone  he  stood  and  looked  down 
upon  the  dainty  array.  He  realised  that  henceforth 
this  was  his  home.  He  picked  up  from  a  plate  a  little 
three-cornered  watercress  sandwich;  but  instead  of 
eating  it,  he  stared  at  it,  and  the  tears  rolled  down  his 
face. 

One  day,  however,  towards  the  end  of  July,  was 
marked  by  a  black  cloud.  His  day's  work  being  over 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     305 

he  was  walking  with  light  step  to  his  lodgings,  when 
he  saw  in  the  distance,  awaiting  him,  almost  on  his 
doorstep,  the  sinister  forms  of  Billiter  and  Vander- 
meer.  His  first  impulse  was  to  turn  and  flee  ;  but  they 
had  already  caught  sight  of  him  and  were  advancing 
to  meet  him.  He  went  on. 

"  Hullo,  old  friend,"  said  Billiter,  in  a  beery  voice. 
"  So  we've  tracked  you  down,  eh  ?  We  called  at  the 
old  place,  and  found  you  had  gone  and  left  no  address. 
Thought  you  would  give  us  the  slip,  eh  ?  " 

He  still  wore  the  costume  in  which  he  had  gone 
racing  with  Ouixtus  ;  but  after  constant  use  it  had 
begun  to  look  shabby.  His  linen  was  of  the  dingiest. 
His  face  had  grown  more  bloated.  Vandermeer, 
pinched,  foxy,  and  rusty,  thrust  his  hard  felt  hat  to 
the  back  of  his  head,  and,  hands  on  hips,  looked  threat- 
eningly at  Huckaby. 

"  I  suppose  you  know  you've  been  playing  a  low- 
down  game." 

"  I  know  nothing  of  the  sort,"  said  Huckaby. 

"  Oh,  don't  you,"  said  Billiter.  "  Look  at  you  and 
look  at  us.  Who's  been  getting  all  the  fat,  and  who 
all  the  lean  ?  We  have  something  to  say  to  you,  old 
friend,  so  let's  get  indoors  and  have  it  out  between  us." 

He  made  a  move,  accompanied  by  Vandermeer, 
towards  the  front  door.  But  Huckaby  checked  them, 
stricken  with  sudden  revolt.  His  past  life  should  not 
defile  the  sanctity  of  his  new  home.  He  would  not 
admit  them  across  his  threshold. 

"  No,"  said  he.  "  Whatever  we've  got  to  say  to 
one  another  can  be  said  here." 

"  All  right,"  said  Vandermeer,  sulkily.  "  There's  a 
quiet  pub  at  the  corner." 

"  I've  chucked  pubs,"  said  Huckaby. 

"  Come  off  it,"  sneered  Billiter.  "  At  any  rate,  you 
can  stand  a  round  of  drinks." 


"  I've  chucked  drink,  too,"  said  Huckaby.  "I've 
sworn  off.  I'll  never  touch  a  drop  of  liquor  as  long 
as  I  live — and  I  advise  you  fellows  to  do  the 
same." 

They  burst  out  laughing,  asked  him  for  tickets  for 
his  next  temperance  lecture,  and  then  began  to  abuse 
him  after  the  manner  of  their  kind. 

"  This  is  a  decent  street,"  said  Huckaby,  "  so  please 
don't  make  a  row." 

"  We're  not  making  any  row,"  cried  Billiter.  "  We 
only  want  our  share  of  the  money." 

"  What  money  ?  Didn't  I  write  and  tell  you  the 
whole  thing  was  off  ?  She  couldn't  stick  it,  and  neither 
could  I.  Quixtus  hasn't  given  her  one  penny  piece." 

"  We'll  see  what  the  lady  has  to  say  about  that," 
growled  Billiter. 

"  You're  going  to  leave  that  lady  alone  henceforth 
and  for  ever,"  said  Huckaby,  with  a  new  ring  of 
authority  in  his  voice. 

The  others  sneered.  Since  when  had  Huckaby  con- 
stituted himself  squire  of  dames  ?  Billiter,  with  pro- 
fane asseveration,  would  do  exactly  what  he  chose. 
Wasn't  it  his  scheme  ?  He  deserved  his  share.  Van- 
dermeer  gloomily  reminded  him  that  he  had  cast 
doubts  from  the  first  on  Huckaby's  probity.  He  had 
put  them  in  the  cart  in  fine  fashion.  They  refused  to 
believe  in  Lena  Fontaine's  squeamishness.  Huckaby 
grew  impatient. 

"  Haven't  you  each  received  a  letter  from  Quixtus's 
solicitors  ?  Haven't  you  each  signed  an  agreement  not 
to  worry  him — on  forfeiture  of  your  allowance  ?  Now 
I  swear  to  God  that  if  either  of  you  molest  her,  you'll 
be  molesting  Quixtus.  I'll  jolly  well  see  to  that.  She'll 
tell  me,  and  I'll  tell  him — and  bang  !  goes  the  monthly 
money." 

Vandermeer's  shrewd  wits  began  to  work.  > 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     307 

"  Molest  her  and  we  molest  Quixtus  ?  Oho !  Is 
that  the  little  game?  She's  going  to  marry  him, 
eh?" 

"  If  she  does,  what  the  blazes  has  that  got  to  do 
with  you  ?  "  Huckaby  cried,  fiercely.  "  You  just  let 
the  woman  alone.  You've  got  a  damned  sight  more 
out  of  Quixtus  than  you  ever  expected,  and  you  ought 
to  be  satisfied." 

"  We  ought  to  get  more,"  said  Billiter,  "  considering 
what  we've  done  for  him." 

"You  won't,"  said  Huckaby,  and  seeing  that  they 
both  still  regarded  Quixtus  as  a  subject  for  further 
exploitation,  "  Let  me  tell  you  something,"  said  he, 
"  a  few  simple  facts  that  alter  the  situation  completely. 
Let  us  take  a  turn  down  the  street." 

And  as  they  walked,  he  told  them  briefly  of 
Hammersley's  death  and  the  Marseilles  visit  and  the 
return  of  Quixtus,  a  changed  man,  with  Clementina 
and  the  child.  The  bee,  on  which  they  had  reckoned 
for  honey,  had  left  Quixtus's  bonnet.  There  was  no 
more  Bedlamite  talk  about  wickedness.  Their  occupa- 
tion as  evil  counsellors  had  gone  for  ever.  They  had 
better  accept  thankfully  what  they  had,  and  disappear. 
Any  action  directed  against  either  Quixtus  or  Lena 
Fontaine  would  automatically  bring  about  the  demise 
of  the  goose  with  the  golden  eggs.  At  last  he  con- 
vinced them  of  the  futility  of  blackmail  ;  but  they 
parted  from  him,  each  with  a  burning  sense  of  wrong. 
Lena  Fontaine  and  Huckaby  had  put  them  in  the  cart. 
They  were  left,  they  were  done,  they  were  stung — 
they  were  all  things  that  slang  has  invented  to  de- 
scribe the  position  of  men  deceived  by  those  in  whom 
they  trusted. 

"  And  she's  going  to  marry  him,"  said  Vandermeer. 

"  Huckaby  didn't  say  so,"  replied  Billiter. 

"  He  didn't  contradict  it.     She's  going  to  marry 


3o8     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

him,  and  you  bet  that  son  of  a  pawn-ticket  will  get 
his  commission." 

"  Well,  we  can't  help  ourselves,"  said  Billiter. 

"  H'm  !  "  said  Vandermeer,  darkly. 

Huckaby,  conscious  of  victory,  went  home,  and 
taking  an  old  student's  text  of  "  Phaedo "  from  his 
shelves,  abstracted  his  mind  from  the  sordid  happen- 
ings of  the  modern  world. 

It  was  a  day  or  two  after  this  adventure  of  Huck- 
aby's  that  Quixtus  informed  Clementina  of  his  inten- 
tion of  giving  a  dinner-party  in  honour  of  Tommy  and 
Etta's  engagement.  She  commended  the  project  ;  a 
nice  little  intimate  dinner 

"I'm  afraid  I'm  planning  rather  a  large  affair,"  said 
be,  apologetically.  "  A  party  of  about  twenty 
people." 

"  Lord  save  us  !  "  cried  Clementina,  "  where  are  you 
going  to  dig  them  up  from  ?  " 

He  stretched  out  his  long,  thin  legs.  They  were 
sitting  on  a  bench  in  the  gardens  of  Russell  Square, 
Sheila  having  strayed  a  few  yards  to  investigate  the 
•contents  of  a  perambulator  in  charge  of  a  smiling  and 
friendly  nursemaid. 

"  There  are  people  to  whom  I  owe  a  return  of  hospi- 
tality," said  he,  with  a  smile,  "  and  I  think  a  certain 
amount  of  formality  is  due  to  Admiral  Concannon." 

"All  right,"  said  Clementina,  "who  are  they?" 

"  There  are  the  Admiral  and  yourself  and  Tommy 
and  Etta,  Lord  and  Lady  Radfield,  General  and  Mrs. 
Barnes,  Sir  Edward  and  Lady  Quinn,  Doorly — the 
novelist,  you  know — Mrs.  Fontaine  and  Lady  Louisa 
Mailing " 

Clementina  stiffened.  The  blood  seemed  to  flow 
from  her  heart,  leaving  it  an  intolerable  icicle.  "  Why 
Mrs.  Fontaine  ?  " 

"  Why  not  ?  " 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     309 

"  Why  should  Mrs.  Fontaine  be  asked  to  Etta's 
party  ?" 

"  She's  a  charming  woman,"  said  Quixtus. 

"  Just  a  shallow  society  hack,"  said  Clementina,  to 
whom  Quixtus  had  not  confided  his  adventures  in  the 
gay  world,  not  through  conscious  disingenuousness, 
but  assuming  that  such  chronicles  would  not  interest 
her. 

"  I'm  afraid  you  do  her  an  injustice,"  he  said, 
warmly.  "  Mrs.  Fontaine  has  very  brilliant  social 
gifts.  I'm  sorry,  my  dear  Clementina,  that  we  disagree 
on  the  point  ;  but  anyhow  she  must  be  invited.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  it  was  she  who  suggested  the  party." 

Clementina  opened  her  lips  to  speak,  and  then  closed 
them  with  a  snap.  Mother  Eve  sat  at  her  elbow  and 
murmured  words  of  good  counsel.  Not  by  abuse  is 
an  infatuated  and  quixotic  man  weaned  from  seduc- 
tresses.  She  swallowed  her  anger  and  fierce  jealousy. 

"  In  that  case,  my  dear  Ephraim,"  she  said,  with 
mincing  civility,  "  there  is  no  question  about  it.  Of 
course  she  must  be  invited." 

"  Of  course,"  said  he. 

"  Who  else  are  to  come  ?  " 

He  ran  through  the  list.  One  or  two  of  the  pro- 
spective guests  she  knew  personally,  others  by  name  ; 
as  to  the  personalities  of  those  unknown  to  her  she 
made  polite  inquiries.  So  unwontedly  sugared  were 
her  phrases  that  Quixtus,  simple  man,  forgot  her  out- 
burst. 

"  You  haven't  given  a  dinner-party  like  this  for  a 
long  time." 

"  Not  for  many  years.  Of  course  I  have  had  men's 
dinners — chiefly  my  colleagues  in  the  Anthropological 
Society.  But  this  is  a  new  venture." 

"  I  wish  it  every  success,"  said  Clementina,  men- 
daciously. "  The  only  wrong  note  in  it  would  be 


3io     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

myself.  Oh  yes,  my  dear  Ephraim,"  she  said,  antici- 
pating his  protest,  "  I'm  not  made  for  such  a  galaxy 
of  fashion.  I  tread  upon  daintily  covered  corns.  I'm 
a  savage — all  right  in  my  wigwam  with  those  I  care 
for — but  no  use  in  a  drawing-room.  You  must  leave 
me  out  of  it." 

Quixtus,  shocked  and  hurt,  turned  and  put  out  both 
hands  in  appeal. 

"  My  dearest  friend,  how  can  you  say  such  things  ? 
You  positively  must  come." 

"  My  dearest  friend,"  she  replied,  forcing  her  grim 
lips  into  a  smile,  "  I  positively  won't." 

And  that  was  the  end  of  the  matter.  She  parted 
from  him  cordially,  and  went  home  with  more  devils 
tearing  her  to  pieces  with  redhot  pincers  than  had  ever 
been  dreamed  of  in  Quixtus's  demonology. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

ROMNEY  PLACE  slumbered  in  the  afternoon 
sunshine.  Most  of  the  blinds  of  the  early 
Victorian  houses  were  drawn,  symbols  of 
quietude  within.  A  Persian  cat,  walking  across  the 
roadway,  stopped  in  the  middle,  after  the  manner  of 
cats,  and  leisurely  made  her  toilette.  A  milk-cart  pro- 
gressed discreetly  from  door  to  door,  and  the  milkman 
handed  the  cans  to  hands  upstretched  from  areas  with 
unclattering  and  nonflirtatious  punctilio.  When  he 
had  finished  his  round  and  disappeared  by  the  church, 
the  street  was  empty  for  a  moment.  The  cat  resumed 
her  journey  and  sat  on  a  doorstep  blinking  in  the  sun. 
Presently  a  foxy-faced  man,  shabbily  clad,  entered  this 
peaceful  scene,  and  walked  slowly  down  the  pavement. 
It  was  Vandermeer,  still  burning  with  a  sense  of 
wrong,  yearning  for  vengeance,  yet  trembling  at  the 
prospect  of  wreaking  it.  At  Tommy's  door  he  hesi- 
tated. Of  his  former  visit  to  the  young  man  no  pleas- 
ant recollections  lingered.  Tommy's  manners  were  im- 
pulsive rather  than  urbane.  Would  he  listen  to 
Vandermeer's  story  or  would  he  kick  him  out  of  the 
house  ?  Vandermeer,  starting  out  on  his  pilgrimage 
to  Romney  Place,  had  fortified  himself  with  the  former 
conjecture.  Now  that  he  had  come  to  the  end  of  it 
the  latter  appeared  inevitable.  He  always  shrank  from 
physical  violence.  It  would  hurt  very  much  to  be 
kicked  out  of  the  house,  to  say  nothing  of  the  moral 
damage.  He  hovered  in  agonising  uncertainty,  and 
took  off  his  hat,  for  the  afternoon  was  warm.  Now, 


3i2     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

while  he  was  mopping  the  brow  of  dubiety,  a  front 
door  lower  down  the  street  opened,  and  a  nurse  and  a 
little  girl  appeared.  They  descended  the  steps  and 
walked  past  him.  Vandermeer  looked  after  them  for 
a  moment,  then  stuck  on  his  hat  and  punched  the  left- 
hand  palm  with  the  right-hand  fist  with  the  air  of  a 
man  to  whom  has  occurred  an  inspiration.  Miss 
Clementina  Wing  also  lived  in  Romney  Place.  That 
must  be  the  child,  Quixtus's  ward,  of  whom  Huckaby 
had  spoken.  It  would  be  much  better  to  take  his  story 
to  Clementina  Wing,  now  so  intimately  associated  with 
Quixtus.  Women,  he  argued,  are  much  more  easily 
inveigled  into  intrigue  than  men,  and  they  don't  kick 
you  out  of  the  house  in  a  manner  to  cause  bodily  pain. 
Besides,  Clementina  had  once  befriended  him.  Why 
had  he  not  thought  of  her  before  ?  He  walked  boldly 
up  the  steps  and  rang  the  bell. 

Clementina  was  fiercely  painting  drapery  from  the 
lay  figure — a.  grey  silk  dress  full  of  a  thousand  folds 
and  shadows.  The  texture  was  not  coming  right. 
The  more  she  painted  the  less  like  silk  did  it  look. 
Now  was  it  muddy  canvas  ;  now  fluffy  wool.  Every 
touch  was  wrong.  Every  stroke  of  her  brush  since  her 
yesterday's  talk  with  Quixtus  was  wrong.  She  could 
not  paint.  Yet  in  a  frenzy  of  anger  she  determined  to 
paint.  What  had  the  woman  invited  to  Quixtus's 
dinner-party  to  do  with  her  art  ?  She  would  make  the 
thing  come  right.  She  would  prove  to  herself  that  she 
was  a  woman  of  genius,  that  she  had  not  her  sex  hang- 
ing round  the  neck  of  her  spirit.  If  Quixtus  chose  to 
make  a  fool  of  himself  with  Mrs.  Fontaine,  in  Heav- 
en's name  let  him  do  so.  She  had  her  work  to  do.  She 
would  do  it,  in  spite  of  all  the  society  hacks  in  Chris- 
tendom. The  skirt  began  to  look  like  a  blanket  stained 
with  coffee.  Let  him  have  his  dinner-party.  What 
was  there  of  importance  in  so  contemptible  a  thing  as 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     313 

a  dinner-party  ?  But  this  infernal  woman  had  sug- 
gested it.  How  far  was  he  compromised  with  this 
infernal  woman?  She  could  wring  her  neck.  The 
dress  began  to  suggest  a  humorously  streaky  London 
fog. 

"  Damn  the  thing  ! "  cried  Clementina,  wiping  the 
whole  skirt  out.  "  I'll  stand  here  for  ever,  until  I 
get  it  right." 

Her  tea,  on  a  little  table  at  the  other  end  of  the 
studio,  remained  untouched.  Her  hair  fell  in  loose 
strands  over  her  forehead,  and  she  pushed  it  back  every 
now  and  then  with  impatient  fingers.  The  front-door 
bell  rang,  and  soon  her  maid  appeared  at  the  gallery 
door. 

"  A  gentleman  to  see  you,  ma'am." 

"  I  can't  see  anybody.  You  know  I  can't.  Tell  him 
to  go  away." 

The  maid  came  down  the  stairs. 

"  I  told  him  you  weren't  in  to  anybody — but  he 
insisted.  He  hadn't  a  card,  but  wrote  his  name  on  a 
slip  of  paper.  Here  it  is,  ma'am." 

Clementina  angrily  took  the  slip  ;  "  Mr.  Vander- 
meer  would  be  glad  to  see  Miss  Wing  on  the  most 
urgent  business." 

"  Tell  him  I  can't  see  him." 

The  maid  mounted  the  stairs.  Vandermeer  ? 
Vandermeer  ?  Where  had  she  heard  that  name  be- 
fore ?  Suddenly  she  remembered. 

"  All  right.  Show  him  down  here,"  she  shouted 
to  the  disappearing  maid. 

She  might  just  as  well  see  him.  If  she  sent  him 
away  the  buzzing  worry  of  conjecture  as  to  his  urgent 
business  would  flitter  about  her  mind.  She  threw 
down  her  palette  and  brush  and  impatiently  rubbed 
'her  hands  together.  Into  what  shape  of  moral  flac- 
cidity  was  she  weakening  ?  Five  months  ago  all  the 


3i4     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

urgent  business  of  all  the  Vandermeers  in  the  world 
could  go  hang  when  she  was  painting  and  could  not 
get  a  thing  right.  Why  should  she  be  different  now 
from  the  Clementina  of  five  months  ago  ?  Why,  why, 
why  ?  With  exasperated  hands  she  further  con- 
founded the  confusion  of  her  hair. 

The  introduction  of  Vandermeer  put  a  stop  to  these 
questionings.  She  received  him,  arms  akimbo,  at  a 
short  distance  from  the  foot  of  the  stairs. 

"  I  must  apologise,  Miss  Wing,  for  this  intrusion," 
said  he,  "  but  perhaps  you  may  remember 

"  Yes,  yes,"  she  interrupted.  "  Ham-and-beef  shop, 
which  you  transmogrified  into  a  restaurant.  Also 
Mr.  Burgrave.  What  do  you  want?  I'm  very 
busy." 

The  sight  of  the  mean  little  figure  holding  his  felt 
hat  with  both  hands  in  front  of  him,  with  his  pointed 
face,  ferret  eyes,  and  red,  crinkly  hair,  did  not  in  any 
way  redeem  her  remembered  impression. 

"  A  very  grave  danger  is  threatening  Dr.  Quixtus,'* 
said  he.  "  It  is  impossible  for  me  to  warn  him  myself, 
so  I  have  come  to  you,  as  a  friend  of  his."  ^ 

"  Danger  ?  "  cried  Clementina,  taken  off  her  guard. 
"  What  kind  of  danger  ?  " 

i  "  You  will  only  understand,  if  I  tell  you  rather  a 
long  story.  But  first  I  must  have  your  promise  of 
secrecy  as  far  as  I  am  concerned." 

"  Don't  like  secrecy,"  said  Clementina. 

"  You  can  take  whatever  action  you  like,"  he  said, 
hastily.  "  It's  in  order  that  you  may  act  in  his  interest 
that  I'm  here.  I  only  want  you  to  give  me  your  word 
that  you  won't  compromise  me  personally.  I  assure 
you,  you'll  see  why  when  I  tell  you  the  story." 

Clementina  reflected  for  a  moment.  It  was  a  danger 
threatening  Quixtus.  It  might  be  important.  This 
little  weasel  of  a  man  was  of  no  account. 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

"  All  right,"  she  said.  "  I  give  my  word.  Go 
ahead." 

She  took  a  pinch  of  tobacco  from  the  yellow  package 
and  a  cigarette  paper,  and,  sitting  in  a  chair  in  the  cool 
draught  of  the  door  opening  on  to  the  garden,  with 
shaky  fingers  rolled  a  cigarette. 

"  Sit  down.  You  can  smoke  if  you  like.  You  can 
also  help  yourself  to  tea.  I  won't  have  any." 

Vandermeer  poured  himself  out  some  tea  and  cut 
an  enormous  hunk  of  cake. 

"  I  warn  you,"  said  he,  drawing  a  chair  within  con- 
versational distance,  "  that  the  story  will  be  a  long 
one — I  want  to  begin  from  the  beginning." 

"  Go  ahead,  for  goodness  sake,"  said  Clementina. 

Vandermeer  was  astute  enough  to  conjecture  that 
a  sudden  denunciation  of  Mrs.  Fontaine  might  defeat 
his  object  by  exciting  her  generous  indignation  ; 
whereas  by  gradually  arousing  her  interest  in  the 
affairs  of  Quixtus,  the  climactic  introduction  of  the 
execrated  lady  might  pass  almost  unrecognised. 

"  The  story  has  to  do,  in  the  first  place,"  said  he, 
"  with  three  men,  John  Billiter,  Eustace  Huckaby,  and 
myself." 

"  Huckaby  ?  "  cried  Clementina,  startled.  "  What 
has  he  to  do  with  you  ?  " 

"  The  biggest  blackguard  of  us  all,"  said  Vander- 
meer. 

Clementina  lay  back  in  her  chair,  her  attention 
caught  at  once. 

"  Go  on,"  she  said. 

Whereupon  Vandermeer  began,  and  with  remorse- 
less veracity — for  here  truth  was  far  more  effective 
than  fiction — told  the  story  of  the  relations  of  the  three 
with  Quixtus,  in  the  days  of  their  comparative  pros- 
perity, when  he  himself  was  on  the  staff  of  a  news- 
paper, Billiter  in  possession  of  the  fag-end  of  his  for- 


316     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

tune,  and  Huckaby  a  tutor  at  Cambridge.  He  told 
how,  one  by  one,  they  sank  ;  how  Quixtus  held  out 
the  helping  hand.  He  told  of  the  weekly  dinners,  the 
overcoat  pockets. 

"  Not  a  soul  on  earth  but  you  three  knew  anything 
about  it  ?  "  asked  Clementina,  in  a  quavering  voice. 

"  As  far  as  I  know,  not  a  soul." 

He  told  of  the  drunken  dinner  ;  of  Quixtus's  anger  ; 
of  the  cessation  of  the  intercourse  ;  of  the  extraordi- 
nary evening  when  Quixtus  had  invited  them  to  be  his 
minister  of  evil  ;  of  his  madness  ;  of  his  fixed  idea 
to  work  wickedness  ;  of  his  own  suggestion  as  regards 
Tommy. 

"  You  infamous  devil  !  "  said  Clementina,  between 
her  set  teeth.  In  her  wildest  conjectures,  she  had 
never  imagined  so  grotesque  and  so  pitiable  a  history. 
She  sat  absorbed,  pale-cheeked,  holding  the  extinct 
stump  of  cigarette  between  her  fingers. 

Vandermeer  paid  no  attention  to  the  ejaculation. 
He  proceeded  with  his  story;  told  of  Billiter  and  the 
turf  ;  of  Huckaby  and  the  heart-breaking  venture. 

"  Oh,  my  God  !  "  cried  Clementina.  "  Oh,  my 
God  !  "  He  told  of  the  meetings  in  the  tavern.  Of 
the  hunger  and  misery  of  the  three.  Of  the  plot  to 
use  a  decoy  woman  in  Paris,  who  was  to  bleed  him  to 
the  extent  of  three  thousand  pounds. 

"  What's  her  name  ?  "  she  cried,  her  lips  parted  in 
awful  surmise. 

"  Lena  Fontaine,"  said  Vandermeer. 

Clementina  grew  very  white,  and  fell  back  into  her 
chair.  She  felt  faint.  She  had  worked  violently,  she 
had  felt  violently  since  early  morning.  Vandermeer 
started  up. 

"  Can  I  get  you  anything  ?  Some  water — some 
tea  ?  " 

"  Nothing,"  she  said,  shortly.    The  idea  of  receiving 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     317 

anything  from  his  abhorrent  hands  acted  as  a  shock. 
"  I'm  all  right.  Go  on.  Tell  me  all  you  know  about 
her." 

He  related  the  unsavoury  details  that  he  had  gleaned 
from  Billiter,  scrupulously  explaining  that  these 
were  at  second  hand.  Finally  he  informed  her  with 
fair  accuracy  of  Huckaby's  latest  report,  giving 
however  his  own  interpretation  of  Huckaby's  con- 
duct, and  laid  the  position  of  Billiter  and  himself  be- 
fore her. 

'  You  see,"  said  he,  "  how  important  it  was  for  me 
to  obtain  your  pledge  of  secrecy." 

"  And  what  do  you  get  out  of  coming  to  me  with 
this  story  ?  " 

Vandermeer  rose,  and  held  his  hat  tight. 

"  Nothing  except  the  satisfaction  of  having  queered 
the  damned  pitch  of  both  of  them." 

Clementina  shrank  together  in  her  chair,  her  hands 
tight  over  her  face,  all  her  flesh  a  shuddering  horror. 
Then  she  waved  both  hands  at  him  blindly. 

"  Go  away  !  Go  away  ! "  she  said,  in  a  hoarse 
whisper. 

Vandermeer's  shifty  eyes  glanced  from  Clementina 
to  a  stool  beside  his  chair.  On  it  lay  the  great  hunk 
of  cake  which  he  had  cut  but  had  not  been  able  to  eat 
during  his  narration.  She  was  not  looking.  He  pock- 
eted the  cake  and  turned.  But  Clementina  had  seen. 
She  uttered  a  cry  of  anguish  and  horror. 

"  Oh,  God  !  Are  you  as  hungry  as  that  ?  You'll 
find  some  money  in  that  end  drawer — "  she  pointed 
to  an  oak  dresser  against  the  gallery  wall.  "  Take 
what  you  want  to  buy  food  with,  and  go.  Only  go  !  " 

Vandermeer  opened  the  drawer,  took  out  a  five- 
pound  note,  and,  having  mounted  the  stairs,  left  the 
studio. 

Clementina  staggered    into   the   little   garden,   her 


318     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

brain  reeling.  She,  who  thought  she  had  fathomed 
the  depths  of  life,  and,  scornful  of  her  knowledge 
thereof,  rode  serene  on  the  surface,  knew  nothing. 
Nothing  of  the  wolf  instinct  of  man  when  hunger 
drives.  Nothing  of  the  degradation  of  a  man  when 
the  drink  fiend  clutches  at  his  throat.  Lord  !  How 
sweet  the  air,  even  in  this  ridiculous  little  London 
garden,  after  the  awful  atmosphere  of  that  beast  of 
prey  ! 

Quixtus  !  All  her  heart  went  out  to  him  in  fierce 
love  and  pity.  Generous,  high-souled  gentleman,  at 
the  mercy  of  these  ravening  wolves  !  She  walked 
round  and  round  the  little  garden  path.  Things  ob- 
scure to  her  gradually  became  clear.  But  many 
remained  dark — maddeningly  impenetrable.  Some- 
thing had  happened  to  throw  the  beloved  man  off  his 
balance.  The  Marrable  trial  might  well  be  a  factor. 
But  was  that  enough  ?  Yet  what  did  the  past  matter  ? 
The  present  held  peril.  The  web  was  being  woven 
tight  around  him.  She  had  hated  the  woman  intu- 
itively at  first  sight.  Had  dreaded  complications.  It 
was  a  million  times  worse  than  she  had  in  her  most 
jealous  dreams  conceived.  If  he  were  lured  into  mar- 
riage, what  but  disaster  could  be  the  end  ?  And 
Sheila  !  Her  blood  froze  at  the  thought  of  her  darling 
coming  into  contact  with  the  woman.  All  her  sex 
clamoured. 

Before  she  acted,  every  dark  corner  must  be 
illuminated.  There  must  be  no  groping  ;  no  false 
movement.  One  man  would  certainly  be  able  to  throw 
light — Huckaby,  the  trusted  friend  of  Quixtus.  The 
more  she  thought  of  him  the  more  she  was  amazed. 
Here  was  one  of  the  ghastly  band,  an  illimitable 
scoundrel,  the  one  who  had  openly  suggested  to  Quix- 
tus the  most  despicable,  yet  the  most  fantastic,  wick- 
edness of  all,  now  the  confidential  secretary,  the  col- 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     319 

laborator,  the  fidus  Achates,  of  the  sane  and  disillu- 
sioned gentleman. 

With  sudden  decision  she  marched  into  the  studio 
and  took  up  the  telephone  and  gave  a  number. 
Quixtus's  voice  eventually  answered.  Who  was  there  ? 

"  It's  me.  Clementina.  Is  Mr.  Huckaby  still  with 
you  ?" 

Huckaby  had  left  half  an  hour  ago. 

"  Can  you  give  me  his  address  ?  I  want  to  ask  him 
to  come  and  see  me.  To  come  to  tea.  I  like  him  so 
much,  you  know." 

The  address  came  through  the  telephone.  She  noted 
it  in  her  memory.  Quixtus  inquired  for  Sheila. 
Clementina  gave  him  cheery  news  and  rang  off.  All 
this  was  arrant  disingenuousness  and  duplicity.  But 
Clementina  did  not  care.  What  woman  ever  does  ? 

She  ran  up  to  her  bedroom,  thrust  on  a  coat, 
pinned  on  the  hat  with  the  wobbly  rose,  and  went  out. 
In  the  King's  Road  she  found  a  taxicab.  A  quarter 
of  an  hour  brought  her  to  Huckaby's  lodgings. 

He  had  spent  a  happy  and  untroubled  day,  and 
was  finishing  the  "  Phsedo "  with  great  enjoyment, 
when  Clementina  burst  into  the  room.  He  leaped  from 
his  chair  in  amazement. 

"  My  dear  Miss  Wing  !  " 

"  You  infernal  villain  !  "  said  Clementina. 

Huckaby  staggered  back.  To  such  a  salutation  it 
is  difficult  to  respond  in  the  ordinary  terms  of  hospi- 
tality. 

"  Will  you  take  a  seat,"  said  he,  "  and  explain  ?  " 

He  drew  a  chair  to  the  open  window.  She  plumped 
herself  down. 

"  I  think  it's  for  you  to  explain,"  she  said. 

"  I  presume,"  said  Huckaby,  after  a  pause,  "  that 
something  in  connection  with  my  past  life  has  come 
to  your  ears.  I  will  grant  that  there  was  in  it  much 


320     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

that  was  not  particularly  creditable.  But  my  con- 
science now  is  free  from  reproach." 

Clementina  sniffed.  "  You  must  have  a  very  accom- 
modating conscience.  What  about  Dr.  Quixtus  and 
Mrs.  Fontaine  ?  " 

"  Well,  what  about  it  ?  " 

"  You  know  the  kind  of  woman  Mrs.  Fontaine  is — 
you  introduced  her  to  him — and  yet  you  are  allowing 
her  to  inveigle  him  into  marriage.  Oh,  don't  deny  it. 
I  know  the  whole  infamous  conspiracy  from  A  to  Z." 

Huckaby  stifled  an  oath.  "  Those  brutes  Vander- 
meer  and  Billiter  have  been  giving  the  woman  away 
to  you  !  "  He  clenched  his  fists.  "  The  blackguards  !  " 

"  I  don't  know  anything  about  Van-what's-his-name 
or  the  other  man.  I  only  know  one  thing.  This  mar- 
riage is  not  going  to  take  place.  I  might  have  gone 
straight  to  Dr.  Quixtus  ;  but  I  thought  it  best  to  see 
you  first.  There  are  various  things  I  want  cleared 
up." 

Huckaby  looked  at  the  woman's  strong,  rugged 
face,  and  then  his  eyes  wandered  round  the  little  cool 
haven  that  was  his  home,  and  a  great  fear  fell  upon 
him.  If  Quixtus  learned  the  truth  now  about  Mrs. 
Fontaine,  he  would  never  be  forgiven.  He  would  be 
put  on  the  same  footing  as  the  two  others  ;  and  then 
the  abyss.  Of  course  he  could  lie,  and  Mrs.  Fontaine 
could  lie.  But  what  would  be  the  use  ?  The  revelation 
of  the  true  facts  to  Quixtus  would  fit  in  only  too  well 
with  his  past  disingenuousness  and  with  his  urgent 
insistence  on  the  heart-breaking  adventure.  And  his 
iron-faced  visitor  would  soon  see  to  it  that  the  lies 
were  swept  away.  His  face  grew  ashen. 

"  You  have  me  in  your  power,"  he  said,  humbly. 
"  Once  I  was  a  gentleman  and  a  scholar.  Then  there 
were  years  of  degradation.  Now,  thanks  to  Quixtus, 
I'm  on  the  way  to  becoming  my  former  self.  If  you 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     321 

denounce  me  to  Quixtus,  I  go  back.  For  sheer  pity's 
sake  don't  do  it." 

"  Let  me  hear  what  you've  got  to  say  for  yourself," 
said  Clementina,  grimly. 

"  What  are  Quixtus's  feelings  with  regard  to  Mrs. 
Fontaine  I  don't  know.  He  has  never  spoken  to  me 
on  the  subject.  But  he  certainly  admires  her  for  what 
she  really  is — a  charming,  well-bred  woman." 

"  Umph  !  "  said  Clementina. 

"  Suppose,"  continued  Huckaby,  "  suppose  we  were 
drawn  into  this  conspiracy.  Suppose  when  we  came 
to  put  it  into  practice  both  our  souls  revolted.  Sup- 
pose she  began  to  like  Quixtus  for  his  own  sake.  Sup- 
pose her  soul  also  revolted  from  her  past  life " 

"  Fiddlesticks  !  "  said  Clementina. 

"  I  assure  you  it's  true,"  he  said,  earnestly.  "  Let 
us  suppose  it  is,  anyhow.  Suppose  she  saw  in  a  mar- 
riage with  a  good  man  her  salvation.  Suppose  she  was 
ready  to  make  him  a  good  wife.  Suppose  I  thor- 
oughly believed  her.  How  could  I,  clinging  to  the 
same  plank  as  she,  do  otherwise  than  I  have  done — 
kept  silent  ?  " 

;<  Your  duty  to  your  benefactor  should  certainly  out- 
weigh your  supposed  duty  to  this  worthless  creature." 

Huckaby  sighed.  "  That's  the  woman's  point  of 
view." 

Clementina  made  an  angry  gesture.  "  I  suppose 
you're  right.  Always  the  confounded  woman's  point 
of  view — when  one  wants  to  look  at  things  judicially. 
Yes.  You  couldn't  give  the  woman  away — a  man's 
perverted  notion — I  see.  Well — let  us  take  it,  for  the 
sake  of  argument,  that  I  believe  you.  What  then  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  he.  "  Mrs.  Fontaine  and  my- 
self are  at  your  mercy." 

"  Umph  !  "  said  Clementina  again.  She  paused, 
glanced  shrewdly  at  his  face,  as  he  sat  forward  in  the 


322     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

chair  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  window,  twisting 
nervous  fingers  and  staring  out  across  the  street. 

"  Tell  me  your  story — frankly — of  Dr.  Quixtus," 
she  said  at  last,  "  from  the  time  of  the  Marrable  trial. 
As  many  details  as  you  can  remember.  I  want  to 
know." 

Huckaby  obeyed.  He  was,  as  he  said,  at  her  mercy. 
His  story  confirmed  Vandermeer's,  but  it  covered  a 
wider  ground,  and,  told  with  truer  perception,  cast 
the  desired  light  on  dark  places.  She  learned  for  the 
first  time — for  hitherto  she  had  concerned  herself  little 
with  Quixtus's  affairs — the  fact  of  his  disinheritance, 
Quixtus  having,  one  raging  day,  revealed  to  Huckaby 
the  history  of  the  cynical  will.  She  questioned  him 
about  Will  Hammersley.  His  account  of  Quixtus's 
half-given  and  hastily  snatched  confidence  was  a  light- 
ning flash. 

Clementina  rose,  aghast,  and  walked  about  the  room. 
The  idea  of  such  a  horror  had  never  entered  her  head. 
Hammersley  and  Angela — it  was  incredible,  impos- 
sible. There  must  have  been  some  awful  hallucination. 
That  Hammersley,  Bayard  without  fear  and  without 
reproach,  and  Angela,  quiet,  colourless  saint,  could 
have  done  this  thing  baffled  all  imaginings  of  human 
passion.  It  was  inconceivable,  ludicrous,  grotesque. 
But  to  Quixtus  it  was  real.  He  believed  it.  It  lay  at 
the  root  of  his  disorder.  Even  now,  with  his  disorder 
cured,  he  believed  it  still.  She  was  rent  with  his 
anguish. 

"  My  God  !     How  he  must  have  suffered  ! " 

"  And  in  spite  of  everything,"  said  Huckaby,  "  he 
is  as  tender  to  Hammersley's  little  daughter  as  if  she 
were  his  own." 

She  swooped  upon  him  in  her  abrupt  fashion. 

"  Thank  you  for  that.  You've  got  a  heart  some- 
where about  you." 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     323 

She  sat  down  again.  "  When  do  you  think  this  sus- 
picion, or  whatever  it  was,  crossed  his  mind  ?  Let  us 
go  back." 

They  talked  long  and  earnestly.  At  length,  Huckaby 
having  ransacked  his  memory  of  things  past,  they 
fixed  as  a  probable  date  the  day  of  the  hostless  dinner. 
Quixtus  had  sent  down  word  that  he  was  ill.  The 
excuse  was  entirely  false.  Nothing  but  severe  mental 
trouble  could  have  stood  in  the  way  of  his  taking  the 
head  of  the  table.  Obviously  something  had  hap- 
pened. Huckaby  had  a  vague  memory  of  seeing  Quix- 
tus, as  he  entered  the  museum,  crush  a  letter  in  his 
hand  and  stuff  it  in  his  jacket  pocket.  It  might 
possibly  have  been  a  letter  incriminating  the  pair. 

Whether  the  conjecture  was  right  or  wrong  did  not 
greatly  matter.  Clementina  felt  now  that  she  held 
the  key  to  Quixtus's  mad  conduct.  Blow  after  blow 
had  fallen  on  him.  Those  whom  he  had  trusted  had 
betrayed  him.  He  had  lost  faith  in  humanity.  The 
gentle  nature  could  not  withstand  this  loss  of  faith. 
There  had  been  shock.  He  had  set  out  to  work  devil- 
dom. The  pity  of  it  ! 

She  uttered  a  queer,  choking  laugh.  "  And  not  one 
piece  of  wickedness  could  he  commit  !  " 

The  summer  twilight  began  to  creep  over  the  quiet 
street,  and  the  darkness  deepened  at  the  back  of  the 
room.  A  long  silence  fell  upon  them.  Clementina 
sat  as  motionless  as  a  dusky  sphinx,  absorbed  by 
strange  thoughts  and  wrung  by  strange  emotions  that 
made  her  bosom  heave  and  her  breath  come  quickly. 
A  scheme,  audacious,  fantastic,  romantic,  began  to 
shape  itself  in  her  mind,  sending  the  blood  tingling 
down  to  her  feet,  to  her  finger-tips. 

At  last  she  made  an  abrupt  movement. 

"  It's  getting  dark.  What  can  the  time  be  ?  I  must 
go  home." 


324     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

She  rose. 

"  Before  I  go,"  she  said,  "  we  must  settle  up  about 
Mrs.  Fontaine." 

"  I  suppose  we  must,"  groaned  Huckaby.  "  All  I 
ask  you  is  to  spare  her  as  much  as  you  can." 

"  We  must  think  first  of  Quixtus,"  she  replied  short- 
ly. "  What  we've  got  to  do  for  him  is  to  build  up  his 
faith  in  humanity  again — not  to  give  the  little  he  has 
another  knockdown  blow.  See  ?  " 

Huckaby  raised  his  head  with  swift  hope. 

"  Do  you  mean  that  he  must  not  know  about  her  ?  " 

"  Or  about  you.    That's  what  I  mean." 

"  God  bless  you !  "  gasped  Huckaby. 

"  All  the  same,  this  precious  marriage  project  has 
got  to  be  put  a  stop  to — forever  and  ever,  amen.  I 
hope  you  realise  that  thoroughly." 

Huckaby  could  not  meet  her  keen  eyes.  He  hung 
his  head. 

"  I  suppose  you  mean  me  to  break  it  gently  to  her 
that — that  the  game  is  up." 

"  I  don't  mean  anything  of  the  kind,"  she  snapped. 
"  Now  look  here.  Pay  strict  attention.  If  you  obey 
me  implicitly  and  scrupulously,  I'll  still  see  whether 
I  can't  be  your  friend — and  I  can  be  a  good  friend; 
but  if  you  don't,  God  help  you!  I've  given  a  pledge 
of  secrecy  to  my  informant  this  afternoon.  Of  course 
I've  broken  it,  like  a  woman.  So  you've  got  to  keep 
it  for  me.  See?  You're  not  to  let  those  two  black- 
guards suffer  in  any  way  on  my  account.  Promise." 

"  I  promise,"  said  Huckaby. 

"  Then  you're  not  to  breathe  a  single  syllable  to 
Mrs.  Fontaine.  Best  keep  out  of  her  way.  Leave 
me  to  deal  with  her.  I'll  let  her  down  gently.  I'll 
give  you  my  word  on  it.  Is  that  a  bargain  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  Huckaby. 

She  put  out  her  hand  frankly. 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     325 

"  Good-bye." 

He  accompanied  her  to  the  front  door. 

"  Can  I  get  you  a  taxi  ?  " 

"  Lord,  no.  When  I'm  a  lady  you  can.  I'll  walk 
till  I  find  one." 

Clementina  sped  to  Romney  Place  with  shining  eyes, 
and  a  smile  lurking  at  the  corners  of  her  lips.  The 
first  thing  she  did  on  arrival  was  to  rush  down  to  the 
telephone. 

"  Is  that  you,  Ephraim  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  came  the  answer. 

"  I've  changed  my  mind,  and  I'm  coming  to  your 
dinner-party." 

"  Delighted,  my  dear  Clementina." 

"  Good-bye." 

She  rang  off,  and  rushed  upstairs  to  make  a  fool  of 
herself  over  Sheila,  who,  already  put  to  bed,  lay  awake 
in  anticipation  of  Clementina's  good-night  cuddle. 

"  When  you  go  to  stay  with  your  uncle,  I  wonder 
whether  he'll  spoil  you  like  this." 

"  You'll  come,  too,"  said  Sheila,  sedately,  "  and  then 
you  can  go  on  spoiling  me." 

"  Lord  preserve  us !  "  cried  Clementina.  "  What  a 
scandal  in  Russell  Square ! " 

Towards  ten  o'clock  Tommy  made  his  appearance. 
The  daily  calls  to  inquire  after  her  health  and  happiness 
had  grown  to  be  a  sacred  observance.  But  as  the 
studio  was  rigorously  closed  to  him  during  the  day- 
light hours  his  visits  were  vespertilian.  If  she  wanted 
him,  she  told  him  to  stay.  If  she  didn't,  she  sent  him 
about  his  business.  He  had  got  into  the  habit  of  kiss- 
ing her,  nephew  fashion,  when  they  met  and  parted. 
She  liked  the  habit  now,  for  she  felt  that  the  boy  loved 
her  very  dearly.  And  in  an  aunt-like,  and  very  satis- 
fying and  comfortful  way,  she,  too,  loved  him  with  all 
her  heart. 


326     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

"Can  I  stay?" 

She  nodded.  He  removed  the  set  palette  from  the 
chair  on  to  which  she  had  cast  it  when  Vandermeer 
was  announced,  and  sat  down. 

"  What  have  you  been  doing  with  yourself?  " 

He  entered  upon  a  long  story.  Some  picture  or  the 
other  was  shaping  splendidly.  His  uncle  had  taken 
Etta  and  himself  to  lunch  at  the  Savoy. 

"  Said  he  was  thinking  of  going  to  Dinard  for  Au- 
gust. Rum  place  for  him  to  go,  isn't  it  ?  " 

Clementina  repressed  manifestation  of  interest  in 
the  announcement.  But  it  set  her  pulses  throbbing. 

"  I  suppose  he  can  go  where  he  likes,  can't  he  ?  "  she 
snapped.  "  What  kind  of  a  lunch  did  you  have  ?  " 

Tommy  ran  through  the  menu.  It  was  his  own  se- 
lection. He  had  given  the  dear  old  chap  sorne  hints 
in  gastronomy.  It  was  wonderful  how  little  he  knew 
of  such  essential  things.  Seemed  to  have  set  his  heart 
on  giving  them  pheasant.  In  July.  After  that  they 
had  gone  to  see  the  New  Futurists.  His  uncle  seemed 
to  know  all  about  them.  Wonderful  work;  but  they 
were  all  erring  after  false  gods.  He  thanked  heaven 
he  had  her,  Clementina,  to  keep  him  orthodox.  It 
was  all  absinthe  and  morphia.  He  rattled  on. 
Clementina,  leaning  far  back  in  her  chair,  watched  the 
curls  of  cigarette  smoke  with  shining  eyes  and  a  Leon- 
ardesque  smile  lurking  at  the  corners  of  her  lips. 

"  Why,  Clementina !  "  he  cried,  with  sudden  indig- 
nation. "  You're  paying  not  the  slightest  attention  to 
me." 

"  Never  mind,  Tommy,"  she  said.  "  You  go  on 
talking.  It  helps  me  to  think.  I'm  going  to  have  a 
devil  of  a  time — the  time  of  my  life !  " 

"  What  in  the  world  are  you  going  to  do  ?  " 

"  Never  mind,  Tommy.  Never  mind.  Oh,  what  a 
fool  I  was  not  to  think  of  it  before !  " 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

THE  next  morning  Clementina  put  off  a  sitter,  a 
thing  which  she  had  never  done  before,  and, 
letting  work  go  hang,  made  an  unprecedented 
irruption  into  Russell  Square. 

"  It's  about  this  dinner  of  yours,"  she  said  as  soon 
as  Quixtus  appeared.  "  I  telephoned  you  yesterday 
that  I  was  coming." 

"  And  I  said,  my  dear  Clementina,  that  I  was  more 
than  delighted." 

"  It  was  the  morose  wart-hog  inside  of  me  that  made 
me  decline,"  she  said  frankly.  "  But  there's  a  woman 
of  sense  also  inside  me  that  can  cut  the  throat  of  the 
wart-hog  when  it  likes.  So  here  I  am,  a  woman  of 
sense.  Now  will  you  let  a  woman  of  sense  run  this 
dinner-party  for  you  ?  Oh — I  know  what  you  may  be 
thinking,"  she  went  on  hastily  without  giving  him  time 
to  reply.  "  I'm  not  going  to  suggest  liver  and  bacon 
and  a  boiled  potato.  I  know  how  things  should  be 
done,  better  than  you." 

"  I'm  afraid  I'm  inexperienced  in  entertainments  of 
this  kind,"  said  Quixtus,  with  a  smile.  "  Spriggs 
generally  attends  to  such  matters." 

"  Spriggs  and  I  will  put  our  heads  together,"  said 
Clementina.  "  I  want  you  to  give  rather  a  wonderful 
dinner-party.  What  kind  of  table  decorations  have 
you?" 

Spriggs  was  summoned.  He  loaded  the  dining- 
room  table  with  family  plate  and  table-centres  and 
solid  cut  glass.  His  pride  lay  in  a  mid-Victorian 

327 


328     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

epergne  that  at  every  banquet  in  the  house  proudly 
took  the  place  of  honour  with  a  fat  load  of  grapes  and 
oranges  and  apples.  Clementina  set  apart  a  few  arti- 
cles of  silver  and  condemned  the  rest,  including  the 
epergne,  as  horrors. 

"  You'll  let  me  have  the  pleasure,  Ephraim,"  she 
said,  "  of  providing  all  the  flowers  and  making  out  a 
scheme  of  decoration.  Anything  I  want  I'll  get  my- 
self and  make  you  a  present  of  it.  I'm  by  way  of  be- 
ing an  artist,  you  know,  so  it  will  be  all  right." 

"  Could  any  one  doubt  it  ?  "  said  Quixtus.  "  I  am 
very  much  indebted  to  you,  Clementina." 

"  A  woman  comes  in  useful  now  and  then.  I've 
never  done  a  hand's  turn  for  you,  and  it's  time  I  began. 
You'll  want  a  hostess,  won't  you  ?  " 

"  Dear  me,"  said  Quixtus,  somewhat  taken  aback. 
"  I  suppose  I  shall.  I  never  thought  of  it." 

"  I'll  be  hostess,"  said  Clementina.  "  I'm  a  kind  of 
aunt  to  Tommy  and  Etta,  for  whom  you're  giving  the 
party.  I'm  a  kind  of  connection  of  yours — and  you 
and  I  are  kind  of  father  and  mother  to  Sheila.  So  it 
will  be  quite  correct.  Let  me  have  your  list  of  guests 
and  don't  you  worry  your  head  about  anything." 

Clementina  in  her  sweeping  mood  was  irresistible. 
Quixtus,  mild  man,  could  do  no  more  than  acquiesce 
gratefully.  It  was  most  gracious  of  Clementina  to 
undertake  these  perplexing  arrangements.  New  sides 
of  her  character  exhibited  themselves  every  day. 
There  was  only  one  flaw  in  the  newly  revealed  Clemen- 
tina— her  unaccountable  disparagement  of  Mrs.  Fon- 
taine. But  even  this  defect  she  remedied  of  her  own 
accord. 

"  I  take  back  what  I  said  about  Mrs.  Fontaine,"  she 
said  abruptly.  "  I  was  in  a  wart-hoggy  humour. 
She's  a  charming  woman,  with  brilliant  social  gifts." 

Quixtus    beamed,    whereat    Clementina    felt    more 


• 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     329 

wart-hoggy  than  ever;  but  she  beamed  also,  with  a 
mansuetude  that  would  have  deceived  Mrs.  Fontaine 
herself. 

Clementina,  after  an  intimate  interview  with  a  first 
resentful,  then  obfuscated  and  finally  boneless  and  sub- 
missive Spriggs,  went  her  way,  a  sparkle  of  triumph 
in  her  eyes.  And  then  began  laborious  days,  during 
which  she  sacrificed  many  glorious  hours  of  daylight  to 
the  arrangements  for  the  dinner-party.  She  spent  an 
incredible  time  in  antique  shops  and  schools  of  art 
needlework,  and  even  haunted  places  near  the  London 
docks  hunting  for  the  glass  and  embroideries  and  other 
things  she  needed.  She  ordered  rare  flowers  from  flor- 
ists. She  wasted  her  evenings  over  a  water-colour  de- 
sign for  the  table  decoration,  and  over  designs  for  the 
menu  and  name-cards. 

"  It's  going  to  be  a  dinner  that  people  shall  remem- 
ber," she  said  to  Etta. 

"  It's  going  to  be  splendid,"  said  Etta.  "  You  think 
of  everything,  darling,  except  the  one  thing — the  most 
important." 

'What's  that,  child?" 

"  Have  you  got  a  dress  to  wear,  darling  ?  " 

"  Dress  ?  "  echoed  Clementina,  staring  at  the  child. 
"  Why,  of  course.  I've  got  my  black." 

Etta  stood  aghast.  "  That  old  thing  you  took  with 
you  packed  anyhow  on  the  motor  trip  ?  " 

"  Naturally.    Isn't  it  good  enough  for  you  ?  " 

"  It's  not  for  me,"  said  Etta,  growing  bold.  "  I 
love  you  in  anything.  It's  for  the  other  people.  Do 
go  and  get  yourself  a  nice  frock.  There's  still  time. 
I've  never  liked  to  tell  you  before,  dear,  but  the  old  one 

gapes  at  the  back "  she  paused  dramatically, 

"  gapes  dreadfully." 

"  Oh,  Lord,  let  it  gape,"  cried  Clementina  impa- 
tiently. "  Don't  worry  me." 


330     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

But  Etta  continued  to  worry,  with  partial  success. 
Clementina  obstinately  refused  to  buy  new  raiment, 
but  consented  to  call  in  Miss  Pugsley,  the  little  dress- 
maker round  the  corner  in  the  King's  Road,  who  fash- 
ioned such  homely  garments  as  Clementina  deigned  to 
wear,  and  to  hand  over  the  old  black  dress  to  her  for 
alterations  and  repairs.  Etta  sighed  and  spent  anxious 
hours  with  Miss  Pugsley  and  forced  a  grumbling  and 
sarcastic  Clementina  to  stand  half  clad  while  the 
frumpy  rag  attained  something  resembling  a  fit. 

"  At  any  rate  there  are  no  seams  burst  and  it  does 
hook  together,"  said  Etta,  dismally  surveying  the  hor- 
ror at  the  final  fitting. 

"  Humph !  "  said  Clementina,  contemplating  herself 
wryly  in  the  mirror.  "  I  suppose  I  look  like  a  lady. 
Now  I  hope  you're  satisfied." 

Meanwhile  such  painting  as  she  did  in  the  intervals 
of  her  daily  excursions  abroad  progressed  exceedingly. 
Tommy  coming  into  the  studio  one  evening  caught 
sight  of  the  picture  of  the  lady  in  the  grey  dress  stand- 
ing on  its  easel. 

"  Stunning !  "  he  cried.  "  Stunning !  You  can  al- 
most hear  the  stuff  rustle.  How  the  dickens  do  you 
get  your  texture?  You're  a  holy  mystery.  By  Jove, 
you  are !  All  this" — he  ran  his  thumb  parallel  with  a 
fold  in  the  drapery — "  all  this  is  a  miracle."  He  turned 
and  faced  her  with  worshipping  eyes  in  which  the  tears 
were  ready  to  spring.  "  By  God,  you're  great !  " 

The  artist  was  thrilled  by  the  homage;  the  woman 
laughed  inwardly.  She  had  dashed  at  the  task  tri- 
umphantly and  as  if  by  magic  the  thing  had  come  out 
right.  She  was  living,  these  days,  intensely.  There 
was  no  miracle  that  she  could  not  work. 

A  morning  or  two  afterwards  she  issued  a  ukase  to 
Tommy  and  Etta  that  they  were  to  accompany  her  on 
an  automobile  excursion.  Tommy,  to  whom  she  had 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     331 

constituted  herself  taskmistress,  boyishly  glad  of  the 
holiday,  flew  down  Romney  Place,  and  found  a  great 
luxurious  hired  motor  standing  at  her  door.  Pres- 
ently Etta  arrived,  and  then  Clementina  and  Sheila  and 
the  young  lovers  started.  Where  were  they  going? 
Clementina  explained.  As  she  could  not  keep  Sheila  in 
London  during  August,  she  had  decided  on  taking  a 
furnished  cottage  in  the  country.  Estate  agents  had 
highly  recommended  one  at  Moleham-on-Thames.  She 
was  going  down  to  have  a  look  at  it,  and  wanted  their 
advice.  The  motor  ploughed  through  the  squalor  of 
Brentford  and  then  sped  along  the  Bath  Road,  through 
Colnbrook  and  Slough  and  Maidenhead  and  through 
the  glorious  greenery  in  which  Henley  is  embowered, 
and  on  and  on  by  winding  shady  roads,  with  here  and 
there  a  flashing  glimpse  of  river,  by  fields  lush  in 
golden  pasture,  up  and  down  the  gentle  hills,  through 
riverside  villages  where  sleeping  gaiety  brings  a  smile 
to  the  eyes,  between  the  high  hedges  of  Oxfordshire 
lanes,  through  the  cool  verdant  mystery  of  beech 
woods,  until  it  entered  through  a  great  gateway  and 
proceeded  up  a  long  avenue  of  elms  and  stopped  be- 
fore a  slumbering  red-brick  manor-house. 

"  This  the  cottage  ?  "  asked  Tommy. 

"  Do  you  think  it's  a  waterfall  ?  "  asked  Clementina. 

They  alighted.  A  caretaker  took  the  order-to-view 
given  by  the  estate  agents  and  conducted  the  party  over 
the  place.  The  more  Tommy  saw  the  more  amazed 
did  he  grow.  There  was  a  park ;  a  garden ;  a  pergola 
of  roses ;  a  couple  of  tennis  courts ;  a  lawn  reaching  to 
the  river.  The  house,  richly  furnished  throughout, 
contained  rooms  innumerable;  four  or  five  sitting- 
rooms,  large  dining-room,  billiard  room,  countless  bed- 
rooms, a  magnificent  studio;  in  the  grounds  another 
studio. 

"  I'll  take  it,"  said  Clementina. 


332     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

"  But,  my  dear,"  gasped  Tommy,  "  have  you  consid- 
ered ?  I  don't  want  to  be  impertinent — but  the  rent  of 
this  place  must  be  a  thousand  pounds  a  minute." 

She  drew  him  apart  from  Etta  and  Sheila. 

"  My  dear  boy,"  she  said.  "  For  no  reason  that  I 
can  see,  I've  lived  all  my  life  on  tuppence  a  year.  It's 
only  quite  lately  that  I've  realised  that  I'm  a  very  rich 
woman  and  can  do  anything  more  or  less  I  please.  I'm 
going  to  take  this  place  for  August  and  September  and 
hire  a  motor-car,  and  you  and  Etta  are  going  to  stay 
with  me,  and  you  can  each  bring  as  many  idiot  boys 
and  girls  as  you  choose,  and  I  shall  paint  and  you  can 
paint  and  Sheila  can  run  about  the  garden,  and  we're 
all  going  to  enjoy  ourselves." 

Tommy  thrust  his  hands  into  the  pockets  of  his  grey 
flannels  and  declared  she  was  a  wonder.  Whereupon 
they  proceeded  to  Moleham  and  after  lunch  at  "  The 
Black  Boy,"  motored  back  to  Chelsea. 

These  were  days  filled  with  a  myriad  activities.  The 
dinner-party  engaged  her  curious  attention.  She  sent 
back  proofs  of  the  menu  and  name  cards  time 
after  time  to  the  firm  of  art  printers  before  she  was 
satisfied.  Then  she  took  them  to  Quixtus.  He  was 
delighted. 

"  But,  my  dear  Clementina,  why  are  you  taking  all 
this  ridiculous  trouble  ?  " 

She  laughed  in  her  gruff  way,  and  summoned 
Spriggs  to  another  dark  and  awful  interview. 

A  day  or  two  before  the  dinner,  Mrs.  Fontaine  who, 
although  she  had  suggested  the  idea,  did  not  view  a 
dinner-party  as  a  world-shaking  phenomenon,  be- 
thought her  of  the  matter.  A  pretty  little  note  had 
summoned  Quixtus  to  tea.  They  were  alone. 

"  I  have  been  wondering,  my  dear  Dr.  Quixtus,"  she 
said,  sweetly,  her  soft  eyes  on  his,  as  soon  as  she  had 
heard  of  the  acceptances  of  the  people  in  whom  she  was 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     333 

interested — "  I  have  been  wondering  whether  we  are 
good  enough  friends  for  me  to  be  audacious." 

He  smiled  an  assurance. 

"  If  I  brought  you  a  few  flowers  for  the  table  would 
you  accept  them?  And  if  you  did,  would  you  let  me 
come  and  arrange  them  for  you  ?  It  would  be  such  a 
pleasure.  Even  the  best  trained  servants  can't  give  the 
little  touch  that  a  woman  can." 

Quixtus  blushed.  It  was  difficult  to  be  ungracious 
to  the  flower  of  womanhood ;  yet  the  flower  of  woman- 
hood had  come  too  late  in  the  day  with  her  gracious 
proposal.  He  explained,  wishing  to  soften  the  neces- 
sary refusal,  that  he  had  already  called  in  the  help  of 
his  artistic  friends,  Miss  Clementina  Wing  and  Tommy 
Burgrave. 

"  Why  didn't  you  send  for  me  ?  Didn't  you  think 
of  me?" 

"  I  did  not  venture,"  said  he. 

"  I  have  been  deluding  myself  with  the  fancy  that 
we  were  friends."  She  sighed  and  looked  at  him  with 
feminine  significance.  "  Nothing  venture,  nothing 
win." 

But  Quixtus,  simple  soul,  was  too  genuinely  dis- 
tressed by  obvious  happenings  to  follow  the  insidious 
scent.  With  great  wisdom  Clementina  had  shown  him 
her  water-colour  design,  and  he  knew  that  Mrs.  Fon- 
taine, with  all  her  daintiness,  could  not  compete  with 
the  faultless  taste  and  poetic  imagination  of  a  great 
artist.  He  wondered  why  so  finely  sensitive  a  nature 
as  the  flower  of  womanhood  did  not  divine  this.  Her 
insistence  jarred  on  him  ever  so  little.  And  yet  he 
shrank  from  wounding  susceptibilities. 

"  I  never  thought  you  would  be  interested  in  such 
trivial  domestic  matters,"  said  he. 

"  It  is  the  little  things  that  count." 

For  the  first  time  in  his  intercourse  with  her  he  felt 


334     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

uncomfortable.  Here  was  the  lady  maintaining  her 
reproach  of  neglect.  If  she  took  so  much  interest  in 
this  wretched  dinner-party,  why  had  she  not  offered 
her  services  at  once?  Unwittingly  he  contrasted  her 
inaction  with  Clementina's  irresistible  energy.  In  an- 
swer to  her  remark  he  said,  smiling : 

"  I'm  not  so  sure  about  that,  although  it's  often  as- 
serted. We  lawyers  have  an  axiom :  De  minimis  non 
curat  lex" 

"  Pity  a  poor  woman.  What  on  earth  does  that 
mean?" 

He  translated. 

"  The  law  is  one  thing  and  human  sentiment  an- 
other." 

With  all  her  rough  contradiction  and  violent  asser- 
tion, Clementina  never  pinned  him  down  to  a  fine  point 
of  sentimental  argument.  There  was  a  spaciousness 
about  Clementina  wherein  he  could  breathe  freely. 
This  close  atmosphere  began  to  grow  distasteful.  There 
was  a  slight  pause,  which  Mrs.  Fontaine  filled  in  by 
handing  him  his  second  cup  of  tea. 

"  Miss  Clementina  Wing,"  said  he,  dashing  for  the 
open,  "  is  so  intimately  associated  not  only  with  the 
object  of  our  little  entertainment,  but  also  with  myself 
in  other  matters,  that  I  could  do  no  less  than  consult 
her." 

Lena  Fontaine  bent  forward,  sugar-tongs  in  hand, 
ready  to  drop  a  lump  into  his  cup — a  charmingly  inti- 
mate pose. 

"  Of  course,  I  understand,  dear  Dr.  Quixtus.  And 
is  she  really  coming  to  the  dinner  ?  " 

"Why  not?" 

"  She's  so — so  unconventional.  I  thought  she  never 
went  into  society." 

"  She  is  honouring  me  by  making  an  exception  in 
my  case,"  replied  Quixtus,  a  little  stiffly. 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     335 

"  I'm  delighted  to  hear  it,"  she  said  sweetly ;  but  in 
her  heart  she  bitterly  resented  Clementina's  interfer- 
ence. She  would  get  even  with  the  fish-fag  for  this. 

On  the  morning  of  the  dinner-party  Clementina  sent 
for  Tommy.  He  found  her,  as  usual  at  work.  She 
laid  down  her  brush  and  handed  him  the  water-colour 
design. 

"  I'm  too  busy  to-day  to  fool  about  with  this  silly 
nonsense.  I  can't  spare  any  more  time  for  it.  You 
can  carry  out  the  scheme  quite  as  well  as  I  can.  You'll 
find  everything  there.  Do  you  mind  ?  " 

Tommy  did  not  mind.  In  fact,  he  was  delighted  at 
the  task.  The  artist  in  him  loved  to  deal  with  things 
of  beauty  and  exquisite  colours. 

"  Shall  I  give  an  eye  to  the  wines?  " 

"  Everything's  quite  settled.  I  saw  to  it  yesterday. 
Now  clear  out.  I'm  busy.  And  look  here,"  she  cried, 
as  he  was  mounting  the  staircase,  "  I'm  not  going  to 
have  you  or  Etta  fooling  round  the  place  to-day.  I'm 
going  to  paint  till  the  very  last  minute." 

She  resumed  her  painting.  A  short  while  after- 
wards, a  note  and  parcel  came  from  Etta.  From  the 
parcel  she  drew  a  long  pair  of  black  gloves.  She  threw 
them  to  the  maid,  Eliza. 

"  What  shall  I  do  with  them,  ma'am  ?  " 

"  Wear  'em  at  your  funeral,"  said  Clementina. 

A  few  minutes  before  eight  Quixtus  stood  in  the 
great  drawing-room  waiting  to  receive  his  guests.  On 
the  stroke  came  Admiral  Concannon,  scrupulously 
punctual,  and  Etta  followed  by  Tommy,  who,  having 
given  the  last  touches  to  the  table,  waylaid  her  on  the 
stairs.  Then  came  Lady  Louisa  Mailing  and  Lena 
Fontaine  demure  in  pale  heliotrope.  After  them  Lord 
and  Lady  Radfield,  he,  tall  and  distinguished,  with 
white  moustache  and  imperial,  she,  much  younger  than 


336     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

he,  dumpy,  expensively  dressed,  wearing  a  false  air 
of  vivacity.  Then  came  in  quick  succession  General 
and  Lady  Barnes,  Griffiths  (Quixtus's  colleague  in  the 
Anthropological  Society),  and  his  wife,  John  Powers- 
foot  (the  Royal  Academician),  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Wilmour- 
Jackson,  physically  polished,  vacant,  opulent,  friends  of 
Mrs.  Fontaine.  Gradually  the  party  assembled  and  the 
hum  of  talk  filled  the  room.  During  an  interval  Quix- 
tus  turned  to  Tommy.  What  had  become  of  Clemen- 
tina, who  had  promised  to  play  hostess?  Tommy 
could  give  no  information.  All  he  knew  about  her  was 
that  he  had  stopped  at  her  door  and  offered  a  lift  in 
his  cab,  and  Eliza  had  come  down  with  a  verbal  mes- 
sage to  the  effect  that  he  was  to  go  away  and  that  Miss 
Wing  was  not  coming  in  his  cab.  Tommy  opined  that 
Clementina  was  in  one  of  her  crotchety  humours.  Pos- 
sibly she  would  not  turn  up  at  all.  Etta  took  Tommy 
aside. 

"  I'm  sure  that  old  black  frock  has  split  down  the 
back  and  Eliza  is  mending  it  with  black  thread." 

Only  the  Quinns  and  Clementina  to  arrive;  and  at 
ten  minutes  past  the  Quinns,  Sir  Edward,  Member  of 
Parliament,  and  Lady,  genial,  flustered  folk  with  many 
apologies  for  lateness.  The  hands  of  the  clock  on  the 
mantelpiece  marked  the  quarter.  Still  no  Clementina. , 
Quixtus  grew  uneasy.  What  could  have  happened? 
Lena  Fontaine  turned  from  him  and  whispered  to 
Lord  Radfield. 

"  She  has  forgotten  to  put  on  her  boots  and  is  driv- 
ing back  for  them." 

Then  Spriggs  appeared  at  the  door  and  announced : 

"  Miss  Clementina  Wing*" 

And  Clementina  sailed  into  the  room. 

For  the  first  and  only  time  in  his  life  did  Quixtus 
lose  his  courtliness  of  manner.  For  a  perceptible  in- 
stant he  stood  stock  still  and  stared  open-mouthed.  It 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     337 

was  a  Clementina  that  he  had  never  seen  before;  a 
Clementina  that  no  one  had  ever  seen  before.  It  was 
Clementina  in  a  hundred-guinea  gown,  gold  silk  gleam- 
ing through  ambergris  net,  Clementina  exquisitely  cor- 
seted and  revealing  a  beautifully  curved  and  rounded 
figure ;  Clementina  with  a  smooth,  clear  olive  skin,  with 
her  fine  black  hair  coiled  by  a  miracle  of  the  hairdress- 
er's art,  majestically  on  her  head,  and  set  off  with  a 
great  diamond  comb ;  Clementina  wearing  diamonds 
at  her  throat;  Clementina  perfectly  gloved;  Clemen- 
tina carrying  an  ostrich  feather  fan ;  Clementina  erect, 
proud,  smiling,  her  strong  face  illuminated  by  her  fine 
eyes  a-glitter  with  suppressed  excitement;  Clementina 
a  very  great  lady  and  almost  a  beautiful  woman.  Those 
who  knew  her  stared  like  Quixtus;  those  who  did  not 
looked  at  her  appreciatively. 

She  sailed  across  the  room,  hand  outstretched  to 
Quixtus. 

"  I'm  so  sorry  I'm  late,  and  so  sorry  I  could  not  run 
in  to-day.  I've  been  up  to  my  ears  in  work.  I  hope 
Tommy  has  been  a  satisfactory  lieutenant." 

"  He  has  most  faithfully  carried  out  your  instruc- 
tions," said  Quixtus,  recovering  his  balance. 

Clementina  smiled  on  Mrs.  Fontaine.  "  How  d'ye 
do.  How  charming  to  meet  you  again.  But  you're 
looking  pale  to-night,  my  dear,  quite  fagged  out,  I 
hope  nothing's  the  matter." 

She  turned  round  quickly,  leaving  Lena  Fontaine 
speechless  with  amazement  and  indignation,  and  shook 
hands  with  the  astonished  Admiral.  Was  this  regal- 
looking  woman  the  same  paint-daubed  rabbit-skinner 
of  the  studio  ?  He  murmured  vague  nothings. 

"Well,  my  dears?" 

Tommy  and  Etta  thus  greeted  stood  paralysed  be- 
fore her  like  village  children  at  a  school  feast  when 
they  are  addressed  by  the  awe-inspiring  squire's  lady. 


338     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

"  Pinch  me.  Pinch  me  hard,"  Tommy  whispered 
when  Clementina  had  turned  to  meet  Lord  Radfield, 
whom  Quixtus  was  presenting. 

"  I  believe  I  have  the  pleasure  of  taking  you  down 
to  dinner,"  said  Lord  Radfield. 

"  I'm  a  sort  of  brevet  hostess  in  this  house,"  said 
Clementina.  "  A  bad  one,  I'm  afraid,  seeing  how  late 
I  am." 

Spriggs  announced  dinner.  Quixtus  led  the  way 
with  Lady  Radfield,  Clementina  on  Lord  Radfield's 
arm  closed  the  procession.  The  company  took  their 
places  in  the  great  dining-room.  Quixtus  at  the  end 
of  the  table  by  the  door  sat  between  Lady  Radfield  and 
Lady  Louisa.  Clementina  at  the  foot  between  Lord 
Radfield  and  General  Barnes.  Lena  Fontaine  had  her 
place  as  near  Clementina  as  possible,  between  Lord 
Radfield  and  Griffiths,  a  dry  splenetic  man  who  had 
taken  her  in.  Clementina  had  thus  arranged  the  table- 
plan. 

The  scheme  of  decoration  was  too  striking  in  its 
beauty  not  to  arouse  immediate  and  universal  com- 
ment. It  was  half  barbaric.  Rich  Chinese  gold  em- 
broideries on  the  damask ;  black  and  gold  lacquer  urns, 
a  great  black-and-gold  lacquer  tray.  Black  irises,  with 
golden  tongues,  in  gold-dust  Venetian  glass;  tawny 
orchids  flaring  profusely  among  the  black  and  gold. 
Here  and  there  shining  through  greenery  the  glow  of 
golden  fruit,  and,  insistent  down  the  long  table,  the 
cool  sheen  of  ambergris  grapes.  Glass  and  silver  and 
damask;  black  and  gold  and  ambergris;  audacious, 
startling,  then  appealing  to  the  eye  as  perfect  in  its 
harmony. 

Quixtus  and  Tommy  each  proclaimed  the  author.  All 
eyes  were  directed  to  Clementina.  Attention  was  di- 
verted to  the  name  and  menu-cards.  Lord  Radfield 
put  his  name-card  into  his  pocket. 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     339 

"  It  is  not  every  day  in  the  week  that  one  takes  away 
a  precious  work  of  art  from  a  London  dinner-party." 

Clementina  enjoyed  a  little  triumph,  the  flush  of 
which  mounted  to  her  dark  face.  With  the  flush,  and 
in  the  setting  she  had  prepared  for  herself,  she  looked 
radiant.  Her  late  entrance  had  produced  a  dramatic 
effect ;  the  immediate  concentration  of  every  one  on  her 
work,  added  to  the  commonplace  of  her  reputation,  had 
at  once  established  her  as  the  central  figure  in  the 
room ;  and  she  sat  as  hostess  at  the  foot  of  the  table  a 
symphony  in  ambergris,  gold  and  black.  Woman,  in 
the  use  of  woman's  weapons,  has  evolved  no  laws  of 
fence. 

"  One  might  almost  have  said  she  did  it  on  purpose," 
murmured  the  ingenuous  Tommy. 

"  Did  what  ?  "  asked  Etta. 

"  Why,  used  the  table  as  a  personal  decoration. 
Don't  you  see  how  it  all  leads  up  to  her — leads  up,  by 
Jove,  to  her  eyes  and  the  diamonds  in  her  hair.  And, 
I  say,  doesn't  it  wipe  out  Mrs.  Fontaine  ?  " 

Tommy  was  right.  Lena  Fontaine's  pale  colouring, 
her  white  face  and  chestnut  hair  faded  into  nothingness 
against  the  riot  of  colour.  The  pale  heliotrope  of  her 
dress  was  killed.  She  was  insignificant  to  the  eye. 
Conscious  of  this  eclipse,  hating  herself  for  having  put 
on  heliotrope  and  yet  wondering  which  of  her  usual 
half-tone  costumes  she  could  have  worn,  she  paid  her 
tribute  to  the  designer  with  acid  politeness.  She 
wished  she  had  not  come.  Clementina  as  fish-fag  and 
Clementina  as  Princess  were  two  totally  different  peo- 
ple. She  could  deal  with  the  one.  How  could  she 
deal  with  the  other  ?  The  irony  in  Clementina's  glance 
made  her  quiver  with  fury;  her  heart  still  burned  hot 
with  the  indignation  of  the  first  greeting.  She  felt 
herself  to  be  in  the  midst  of  hostile  influences.  Grif- 
fiths, a  man  of  unimaginative  fact,  plunged  headlong 


340     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

into  a  discourse  on  comparative  statistics  of  accidents 
to  railway  servants.  She  listened  absently,  angry  with 
Quixtus  for  pairing  her  with  so  dreary  a  fellow.  Grif- 
fiths irritated  by  her  non-intelligence  transferred  the 
lecture  to  his  other  neighbour  as  soon  as  an  oppor- 
tunity occurred.  Lena  Fontaine  awaited  her  chance 
with  Lord  Radfield.  But  Clementina  held  him  amused 
and  interested,  and  soon  drew  General  Barnes  into  the 
talk.  With  the  slough  of  her  old  outer  trappings  Clem- 
entina had  cast  off  the  slough  of  her  abrupt  and  uncon- 
ventional speech.  She  was  a  woman  of  acute  intellect, 
wide  reading  and  wide  observation.  She  had  ideas 
and  wit  and  she  had  come  out  this  evening  flamingly 
determined  to  use  all  her  powers.  Her  success  sent 
her  pulses  throbbing.  Here  were  two  men,  at  the  out- 
set of  her  experiment,  hanging  on  her  words,  paying 
indubitable  homage,  not  to  the  woman  of  brains,  not 
to  the  well-known  painter,  but  to  the  essential  woman 
herself.  The  talk  quickly  became  subtle,  personal,  a 
quick  interchange  of  hinted  sentiment,  that  makes  for 
charm.  When  Lord  Radfield  at  last  turned  to  Lena 
Fontaine,  she  could  offer  him  nothing  but  common- 
places; Goodwood,  a  scandal  or  so,  the  fortunes  of  a 
bridge  club.  Clementina  adroitly  brought  them  both 
quickly  into  her  circle,  and  Lena  Fontaine  had  the 
chagrin  to  see  the  politely  bored  old  face  suddenly  lit 
up  with  reawakened  interest.  For  a  moment  or  two 
Lena  Fontaine  flashed  into  the  talk,  determined  to  offer 
battle;  but  after  a  while  she  felt  dominated,  cowed, v 
with  no  fight  left  in  her.  The  other  woman  ruled  tri- 
umphant. 

Tommy  could  not  keep  his  eyes  off  Clementina,  and 
neglected  Etta  and  his  left-hand  neighbour  shamefully. 
An  unprecedented  rosiness  of  finger-nails  caught  his 
keen  vision.  In  awe-stricken  tones  he  whispered  to 
Etta: 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     341 

"Manicured!" 

"  Go  on  with  your  dinner,"  said  Etta,  "  and  don't 
stare,  Tommy.  It's  rude." 

"  She  should  have  given  us  warning,"  groaned 
Tommy.  "  We're  too  young  to  stand  it." 

The  exquisitely  cooked  and  served  meal  proceeded. 
The  French  chef  whom  Clementina  had  engaged  and 
to  whom  she  had  given  full  scope  for  his  art  had  felt 
like  an  architect  unrestricted  by  site  or  expense  who 
can  put  into  concrete  form  the  dreams  of  a  lifetime. 
John  Powersfoot,  the  sculptor,  sitting  next  to  Lady 
Louisa,  cried  out  to  his  host : 

"  This  is  not  a  dinner  you're  giving  us,  Quixtus,  it's 
a  poem." 

Lady  Louisa  ate  on,  too  much  absorbed  in  flavours 
for  articulate  thought. 

Quixtus  smiled.  "  I'm  not  responsible.  The 
mistress  of  the  feast  is  facing  me  at  the  other 
end." 

Powersfoot,  who  knew  the  Clementina  of  everyday 
life,  threw  up  his  hands  in  a  Latin  gesture  which  he 
had  learned  at  the  Beaux-Arts  and  of  which  he  was 
proud. 

"  The  most  remarkable  woman  of  the  century." 

"  I  think  you're  right,"  said  Quixtus. 

He  looked  down  the  table  and  caught  her  eye  and 
exchanged  smiles.  Now  that  he  could  adjust  his  mind 
to  the  concept  of  Clementina  transfigured,  he  felt  con- 
scious of  a  breathless  admiration.  He  grew  absurdly 
impatient  of  the  social  conventions  which  pinned  him 
in  his  seat  leagues  of  lacquer  and  orchids  away  from 
her.  Idiotic  envy  of  the  two  men  whom  she  was  fasci- 
nating by  her  talk  entered  his  heart.  She  was  laugh- 
ing, showing  her  white  strong  teeth,  as  only  once  be- 
fore she  had  shown  her  teeth  to  him.  He  longed  to 
escape  from  the  vivaciously  inane  Lady  Radfield  and 


342     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

join  the  group  at  the  other  end  of  the  table.  Now  and 
then  his  eye  rested  on  Lena  Fontaine ;  but  she  had  al- 
most faded  out  of  sight. 

At  the  end  of  the  dinner  he  held  the  door  open  for 
the  ladies  to  pass  out.  Clementina,  immediately  pre- 
ceded by  Etta,  whispered  a  needless  recommendation 
not  to  linger.  The  door  closed.  Etta  put  her  arm 
round  Clementina's  waist. 

"  Oh,  darling,  you  look  too  magnificent  for  words. 
But  why  didn't  you  tell  me?  Why  did  you  make  a 
fool  of  me  about  the  old  black  dress?  " 

Clementina  disengaged  the  girl's  arm  gently. 

"  My  child,"  she  said,  "  if  I  have  the  extra  pressure 
of  a  feather  on  me,  I'll  yell.  I'm  suffering  the  tortures 
of  the  damned." 

"  Oh,  poor  darling." 

"  It's  worth  it,  though,"  said  Clementina. 

When  the  men  came  upstairs  she  again  enjoyed  a 
triumph.  Men  and  women  crowded  round  her  and 
ministered  instinctively  to  her  talk.  All  the  pent-up 
emotions,  longings,  laughter  of  years  found  torrential 
utterance.  Powersfoot,  standing  over  her,  was  amazed 
to  discover  how  shapely  were  her  bare  arms  and  how 
full  and  graceful  her  neck  and  shoulders. 

Quixtus  talked  for  a  few  moments  with  the  spotless 
flower  of  womanhood.  In  the  stiff  formality  of  the 
drawing-room  she  regained  her  individuality.  With  a 
resumption  of  her  air  of  possession  she  patted  a  vacant 
seat  on  the  couch  beside  her  and  invited  him  to  sit 
down.  He  obeyed. 

"  I  thought  you  were  going  to  neglect  me  altogeth- 
er," she  said. 

He  protested  courteously.  They  sparred  a  little. 
Then  Wilmour-Jackson,  polished  and  opulent,  eye- 
glass in  eye,  crossed  over  to  the  couch  and  Quixtus, 
rising  with  an  eagerness  that  made  Lena  Fontaine  bite 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     343 

her  lip,  yielded  him  the  seat  and  joined  the  charmed 
circle  around  Clementina.  A  little  thrill  of  pleasure 
passed  through  him  as  she  glanced  a  welcome.  He 
gazed  at  her,  fascinated.  Something  magnetic,  femi- 
nine, he  was  too  confused  to  know  what,  emanated 
from  her  and  held  him  bound.  Never  in  all  the  years 
of  his  knowledge  of  her  had  she  appealed  to  him  in  this 
extraordinary  manner.  Why  had  the  perfect  neck  and 
arms,  the  graceful  figure  been  hidden  under  shapeless 
garments?  Why  had  the  magnificence  of  her  hair 
never  been  revealed  ?  Why  had  grim  frown  and  tight- 
ened lips  locked  within  the  features  the  laughter  that 
now  played  about  them?  Once  he  had  seen  her  face 
illuminated — at  the  hotel  in  Marseilles — but  then  it 
was  with  generous  and  noble  feeling  and  he  had  for- 
gotten the  disfiguring  attire.  But  now  she  had  the 
stateliness  of  a  queen,  and  men  hung  around  her,  ir- 
resistibly attracted.  .  .  . 

At  last  Lady  Radfield  disentangled  her  lord  and  de- 
parted. Others  followed  her  example.  The  party 
broke  up,  with  the  curious  suddenness  of  London.  In 
a  brief  interval  between  adieux,  Quixtus  and  Clemen- 
tina found  themselves  alone  together. 

"  Well  ?  "  she  asked.    "  Are  you  pleased  ?  " 

"  Pleased  ?  What  a  word !  I'm  dumbfounded.  I've 
been  blind  and  my  eyes  are  open.  I  never  knew  you 
before." 

"  Because  I  have  a  decent  gown  on  ?  I  couldn't  do 
less." 

"  Because,"  said  he,  "  I  never  knew  what  a  beautiful 
woman  you  were." 

The  blood  flew  to  her  dark  cheeks.  She  touched 
his  arm,  and  looked  at  him. 

"  Do  you  really  think  I  look  nice  ?  " 

His  reply  was  cut  short  by  the  Quinns  coming  up 


344     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

to  take  leave,  but  she  read  it  on  his  face.  The  room 
thinned.  Lena  Fontaine  came  up. 

"  It's  getting  late.  I  must  rescue  Louisa  and 
go.  Your  dinner-party  was  quite  a  success,  Dr.  Quix- 
tus." 

"  So  glad  you  think  so,"  said  Clementina.  "  Espe- 
cially now  that  I  hear  you  were  originally  responsible 
for  it.  It  was  most  kind  of  you  to  think  of  our  dear 
young  people.  But  don't  go  yet.  Lady  Louisa  is  quite 
happy  with  Mr.  Griffiths.  He  is  feeding  her  with  facts. 
Let  us  sit  down  for  a  minute  or  two  and  chat  comforta- 
bly." 

She  moved  to  a  sofa  near  by  and  motioned  Mrs. 
Fontaine  to  a  seat.  The  latter  had  to  yield.  Quixtus 
drew  up  a  chair. 

"  I've  done  a  desperate  thing,"  said  Clementina. 
"  I've  taken  the  old  Manor  House  at  Moleham-on- 
Thames,  for  August  and  September.  It's  as  big  as  a 
hotel,  and  unless  I  fill  it  with  people,  I  shall  be  lost  in 
it.  Now  every  one  who  wants  to  paint  can  have  a 
studio — I  myself  am  going  to  paint  every  morning — 
and  any  one  who  wants  to  write  can  have  a  library. 
Sheila  has  picked  out  the  library  for  you,  Ephraim — 
takes  it  for  granted  that  you're  coming.  I  hope  you 
will.  You'll  break  her  heart  if  you  don't — and  there'll 
be  a  room  for  Mr.  Huckaby,  too.  There'll  be  Etta  and 
Tommy,  of  course — and  the  Admiral  has  promised  to 
put  in  a  week  or  two — and  so  on.  And  if  you'll  only 
come  and  stay  August  with  me,  my  dear  Mrs.  Fon- 
taine, my  cup  of  happiness,  unlike  my  house,  will  be 
full." 

Lena  Fontaine  gasped  for  an  outraged  moment. 
Then  a  swift,  fierce  temptation  assailed  her  to  take 
the  enemy  at  her  word  and  fight  the  battle ;  but,  glanc- 
ing at  her,  she  saw  the  irony  and  banter  and  deadly 
purpose  behind  the  glittering  eyes,  and  her  courage 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     345 

failed  her.  She  was  dominated  again  by  the  intense 
personality,  frightened  by  her  sudden  and  unexpected 
power.  To  stay  under  the  woman's  roof  was  an  im- 
possibility. 

"  I'm  sorry  I  can't  accept  such  a  charming  invita- 
tion," she  said  with  a  smile  of  the  lips,  "  for  I've  made 
an  engagement  with  some  friends  to  go  to  Dinard." 

"  Oh — you're  going  to  Dinard,  too  ?  "  cried  Clem- 
entina. 

"  What  do  you  mean  by  '  too '  ?  "  asked  the  other 
shortly. 

"  I  heard  a  rumour  that  Dr.  Quixtus  was  going- 
there.  It  seemed  so  silly  that  I  paid  no  attention  to  it. 
Are  you  really  going  Ephraim  ?  " 

It  was  a  trap  deliberately  laid.  It  was  a  defiance,  a 
challenge.  From  the  corner  of  the  sofa  she  stretched 
out  her  bare  arm  at  full  length  and  laid  her  hand  on 
his  shoulder.  The  other  woman  looked  white  and 
pinched;  her  eyes  lost  their  allurement,  and  regarded 
him  almost  with  enmity. 

"  You  promised." 

The  words  were  snapped  out  before  she  could  re- 
alise their  significance.  The  instant  after  she  could 
have  thrust  hat-pins  into  herself  in  punishment  for 
her  folly.  The  manhood  in  Quixtus  leapt  at  the  lash. 
He  knew  then,  with  a  startling  clarity  of  assurance, 
that  nothing  in  the  world  would  induce  him  to  strut 
about  casinos  with  her  in  Dinard.  He  smiled  cour- 
teously. 

"  Pardon  me,  dear  Mrs.  Fontaine.  I  made  no  prom- 
ise. You  must  remember  my  little — my  little  trope  of 
the  daw  and  the  peacocks." 

Clementina,  satisfied,  withdrew  her  hand. 

"  Of  course,  dear  Ephraim,  if  you  would  prefer  to 
go  to  Dinard  with  Mrs.  Fontaine " 

Lena  Fontaine  rose.    "  Dr.  Quixtus  is  obviously  free 


346     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

to  do  what  he  chooses.  I  wish  you  would  kindly  leave 
me  out  of  it." 

Clementina  rose,  too,  and  held  out  her  hand. 

"  I  will,  my  dear  Mrs.  Fontaine,"  she  said  sweetly. 
"  If  I  can.  Good-bye.  It  has  been  so  delightful  to 
have  had  you." 

Her  exit  with  Lady  Louisa  was  confused  with  that 
of  other  stragglers.  The  Admiral,  Etta  and  Tommy 
remained.  They  all  went  down  to  Quixtus's  study,  the 
little  back  room  of  the  adventure  of  the  drunken 
housekeeper  now  cheery  with  decanters  and  syphons 
and  cigarettes,  and  chatted  intimately  till  the  Admi- 
ral reminded  Etta  that  the  horses — such  fat  horses, 
murmured  Etta — had  been  standing  for  nearly 
an  hour.  Tommy  accompanied  father  and  daughter 
to  the  carriage.  Quixtus  and  Clementina  were  left 
alone. 

"  Can  I  tell  Sheila  to-morrow  that  you're  coming 
down  to  Moleham  ?  " 

"  I  think  you  can,"  said  Quixtus.  "  I  think  you  can 
quite  safely." 

"  I'm  sorry  Mrs.  Fontaine  wasn't  able  to  join  us." 

"  Now  why  ?  "  he  asked,  vaguely  conscious  of  out- 
stretched claw  and  flying  fur. 

"  Because  she  has  such  brilliant  social  gifts,"  replied 
Clementina. 

There  was  a  span  of  silence.  Clementina  inhaled  a 
puff  of  the  Turkish  cigarette  she  had  lit  and  then  threw 
it  into  the  grate. 

"  For  God's  sake,  my  dear  man,  look  in  that  drawer 
and  give  me  some  tobacco  I  can  smoke.  I  smuggled  it 
in  yesterday." 

Quixtus  gave  her  the  yellow  package  and  papers  and 
she  rolled  a  cigarette  of  Maryland  and  smoked  con- 
tentedly. Tommy  came  in. 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     347 

"  Will  you  and  these  infants  lunch  with  me  tomor- 
row at  the  Carlton  ?  " 

"  With  pleasure,"  said  Quixtus. 

"  Do  you  know,"  she  said,  "  I've  never  been  inside 
the  place  ?  It  will  be  quite  an  adventure." 

A  few  moments  later  Tommy  and  herself  were 
speeding  westward  in  a  taxicab.  The  boy  spoke  little. 
All  his  darling  conceptions  of  Clementina  had  been 
upheaved,  dynamited,  tossed  into  the  air  and  lay 
around  him  in  amorphous  fragments.  Nor  was  she 
conversationally  inclined.  Tommy  now  was  a  tiny  lit- 
tle speck  in  her  horizon.  Yet  when  the  motor  drew  up 
at  her  house  in  Romney  Place  and  he  opened  the  gate 
for  her,  something  significant  happened. 

He  put  out  his  hand.    "  Good-night,  Clementina." 

She  laughed.  "  Where  are  your  manners,  Tommy? 
Aren't  you  going  to  kiss  me  ?  " 

He  hesitated,  just  the  fraction  of  a  second,  and  then 
kissed  her.  She  ran  up  to  her  room  exultant ;  not  be- 
cause she  had  been  kissed ;  far  from  it.  But  because  he 
had  hesitated.  Between  Clementina  fish-fag  and  Clem- 
entina princess  was  a  mighty  gulf.  She  knew  it.  She 
exulted.  She  went  to  bed,  but  could  not  sleep-.  She 
had  a  headache ;  such  a  headache ;  a  glorious  headache ; 
a  thunder  and  lightning  of  a  headache ! 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

TOMMY,  calling  for  Clementina  the  next  morn- 
ing, was  confronted  at  the  open  door,  not  by 
Eliza,  but  by  a  demure  damsel  in  a  black 
frock,  black  apron,  and  a  black  bow  in  her  hair,  who 
said  "  Oui,  monsieur,"  when  addressed.  Tommy,  still 
bewildered,  asked  whether  she  was  a  new  lady's  maid. 
"  Oui,  monsieur,"  said  the  damsel,  and  showed  him 
into  the  Sheraton  drawing-room.  He  sat  down  meekly 
and  waited  for  Clementina.  She  came  down  soon,  a 
resplendent  vision,  exquisitely  gowned,  perfectly  hat- 
ted, delicately  gloved,  and  in  her  hand  she  jingled  a 
small  goldsmith's  shop.  She  pirouetted  round. 

"Like  it?" 

Tommy  groaned.  "  Clementina,  darling,  tell  me,  in 
Heaven's  name,  what  you're  playing  at,  or  I'll  go  rav- 
ing mad." 

"  I  told  you  that  one  of  these  days  I  was  going  to 
become  a  lady.  The  day  has  come.  Don't  I  look  like 
a  lady?" 

"  That's  the  devil  of  it,"  he  laughed.  "  You  look 
like  an  archduchess." 

They  picked  up  Etta  and  met  Quixtus  at  the  Carlton 
where  they  lunched  in  the  middle  of  the  great  gay 
room.  The  young  people's  curious  awe  of  the  trans- 
mogrified Clementina  soon  melted  away.  The  big, 
warm-hearted  Clementina  they  loved  was  unchanged ; 
but  to  her  was  added  a  laughter-evoking,  brilliant, 
joyous  personage  whose  existence  they  had  never  sus- 
pected. Quixtus  went  home  stimulated  and  uplifted. 

348 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     349 

He  had  never  enjoyed  two  hours  so  much  in  his  life. 

And  that  was  the  beginning  of  the  glory  of  Clemen- 
tina Wing. 

Day  by  day  the  glory  deepened.  The  pyrotechnic — 
a  flash,  a  bedazzlement  and  then  darkness — was  not  in 
Clementina's  nature.  She  had  deliberately  immolated 
the  phoenix  of  dusty  plumage  and  from  its  ashes  had 
arisen  this  second  and  radiant  phoenix  incarnation.  She 
suffered,  as  she  confessed  to  herself,  infernally;  for 
a  new  fire-born  phoenix  must  have  its  skin  peculiarly 
tender;  but  she  grinned  and  bore  it  for  the  greater 
glory — well,  not  of  Clementina  alone — but  of  God  and 
her  sex  and  the  happiness  of  those  she  loved  and  the 
things  that  stood  for  the  right. 

She  was  fighting  the  interloping  woman  with  her 
own  weapons.  She,  Clementina,  the  despised  and  re- 
jected of  men,  was  pitting  her  sex's  fascinations 
against  the  professional  seductress.  She  had  won  the 
first  pitched  battle.  She  had  swept  the  enemy  from 
the  field.  Sheer  fierceness  of  love,  almost  animal,  for 
the  child,  sheer  pity  flaming  white  for  the  man  grown 
dear  to  her,  sheer  sex,  sheer  womanhood — these  were 
the  forces  at  work.  It  would  have  been  easy  to  de- 
nounce the  woman  to  Quixtus.  But  that  might  have 
thrown  him  back  into  darkness.  Easy,  too,  to  have 
held  her  knowledge  as  a  threat  over  the  woman's  head 
and  bade  her  begone.  But  where  had  been  the  tri- 
umph ?  Where  the  glory  ?  Whereas  to  scorn  the  use 
of  her  knowledge  and  conquer  otherwise,  therein  lay 
matter  for  thrilling  exultation.  It  was  an  achievement 
worth  the  struggle. 

And  the  glory  of  the  riot  through  her  veins  of  the 
tumultuous  Thing  she  had  kept  strangled  to  torpor 
within  her!  The  Thing  that  had  been  stirred  by  the 
springtide  in  a  girl's  heart,  that  had  leapt  at  the  parrot 
tulips  in  the  early  May,  that  had  almost  escaped  from. 


350     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

grip  on  the  moonlit  night  at  Vienne,  that  had  re- 
mained awake  and  struggling  ever  since — the  glory  to 
let  it  go  free  and  carry  her  withersoever  it  would! 
Art — to  the  devil  with  it !  What  was  Art  in  compari- 
son with  this  new-found  glory? 

It  made  her  ten  years  younger.  It  took  years  from 
the  man  for  whose  fascination  she  brought  it  into  play. 
Hers  was  a  double  conquest,  the  rout  of  the  woman,  the 
capture  of  the  man.  Daily  she  battled.  Sheila,  the 
lovers,  a  new  portrait  of  him  which  she  suddenly  con- 
ceived the  splendid  notion  of  painting,  all  were  pre- 
texts for  keeping  the  unconscious  man  within  the 
sphere  of  her  influence.  Any  impression  that  the  other 
had  made  on  his  heart  or  his  mind  should  be  deleted, 
and  her  impression  stamped  there  in  its  place,  so  that 
when  he  met  the  other  out  of  her  presence,  as  meet  her 
he  undoubtedly  must,  he  would  wear  it  as  a  talisman 
against  her  arts  and  blandishments.  Twice  also  diir- 
ing  the  dying  days  of  the  season,  late  that  year,  she 
went  out  into  the  great  world  and  gave  her  adversary 
battle  in  the  open. 

It  was  between  these  two  engagements  that  she  had 
a  talk  with  Huckaby. 

Huckaby,  doing  his  best  to  act  loyally  towards  both 
parties,  led  a  precarious  moral  existence.  The  sight 
of  Clementina  queening  it  in  dazzling  raiment  about 
Quixtus's  house  and  the  despairing  confidences  of  Lena 
Fontaine  had  enabled  him  to  form  a  fairly  accurate 
judgment  of  the  state  of  affairs.  His  heart  began  to 
bleed  for  Lena  Fontaine.  She  would  come  to  his  lodg- 
ings and  claim  sympathy.  To  not  a  soul  in  the  world 
but  him  could  she  talk  freely.  She  was  desperate. 
That  abominable  woman  insulted  her,  trampled  on  her, 
poisoned  Quixtus's  mind  against  her.  He  had  changed 
suddenly,  seemed  to  avoid  her,  and,  when  he  found 
himself  in  her  company,  he  was  just  polite  and  courte- 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     351 

ous  in  his  gentle  way,  and  smilingly  eluded  her.  The 
Dinard  intimacy,  on  which  she  had  reckoned,  had  faded 
into  the  land  of  dreams.  He  was  being  dragged  off 
before  her  eyes  to  some  fool  place  up  the  river  to  be 
watched  and  guarded  like  a  lunatic.  What  was  she  to 
do  ?  Ruin  would  soon  be  staring  her  in  the  face.  She 
had  thought  of  upbraiding  him  for  neglect,  of  re- 
proaching him  for  having  played  fast  and  loose  with 
her  affections,  of  putting  him  through  the  ordeal  of  an 
emotional  scene.  Of  that,  however,  she  was  afraid ;  it 
might  scare  him  away  for  good  and  all.  She  wept,  an 
unhappy  and  ill-treated  woman,  and  Huckaby  supplied 
sympathy  and  handkerchiefs  and  a  mirror  so  that  she 
could  repair  the  ravages  of  tears. 

One  day  Huckaby  and  Clementina  met  in  the  hall  of 
the  Russell  Square  house. 

"  Well,"  she  said.  "  Have  you  seen  Mrs.  Fontaine 
lately?" 

He  admitted  that  he  had. 

"  Taking  it  rather  badly,  I  suppose,"  she  remarked 
with  a  reversion  to  her  grim  manner. 

"  She  is  miserable.  As  I  told  you,  it  means  all  the 
world  to  her — her  very  salvation." 

Clementina  caught  the  note  of  deep  pleading  in  his 
voice  and  fixed  him  with  her  shrewd  eyes. 

"  You  seem  to  concern  yourself  very  deeply  about 
the  lady." 

Huckaby  glanced  at  her  for  a  moment  hesitatingly ; 
then  shrugged  his  shoulders.  Clementina  was  a  woman 
to  whom  straight  dealing  counted  for  righteousness. 
He  gave  her  his  secret. 

"  I've  grown  to  care  for  her — to  care  for  her  very 
much.  I  know  I'm  a  fool,  but  I  can't  help  it." 

"  Do  you  know  anything  of  the  lady's  private  affairs 
— financial,  I  mean — how  much  she  has  honestly  of  her 
own?" 


352     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

"  Four  hundred  pounds  a  year." 

"And  you?" 

"  When  I  take  up  the  appointment  of  the  Anthro- 
pological Society  I  shall  have  five  hundred." 

"  Nine  hundred  pounds.  Have  you  any  idea  of  the 
minimum  rate  per  annum  at  which  she  would  accept 
salvation?  " 

"  No,"  said  Huckaby  in  a  dazed  way. 

"  Well,  work  it  out,"  said  Clementina.  "  Good- 
bye." 

Her  second  sortie  into  the  great  world  was  on  the 
occasion  of  a  garden  party  at  the  Quinns.  Lady 
Quinn  had  asked  her  verbally  at  Quixtus's  dinner  and 
had  sent  her  a  formal  card.  Knowing  that  Quixtus 
was  going  and  more  than  suspecting  that  the  enemy 
would  be  there,  too,  she  had  kept  her  own  invitation  a 
secret.  Welcomed,  flattered,  surrounded  by  the  gay 
crowd  in  the  large,  pleasant  Hampstead  garden,  it  was 
some  time  before  she  saw  Mrs.  Fontaine.  At  last  she 
caught  sight  of  her  sitting  with  Quixtus,  at  the  end  of 
the  garden,  half  screened  by  a  tree-trunk  from  the 
mass  of  guests.  As  soon  as  Clementina  could  work  her 
way  through,  she  advanced  quickly  and  smiling  to- 
wards them.  Quixtus  sprang  to  his  feet  and  seemed 
to  take  a  deep  breath  as  a  man  does  when  he  flings 
bedroom  windows  wide  open  on  his  first  morning  in 
mountain  air. 

"  Clementina !  I  hadn't  the  dimmest  notion  that  you 
were  coming!  How  delightful!"  He  surveyed  her 
for  a  moment  as  she  stood  before  him,  parasol  on 
shoulder.  Clementina  with  a  parasol !  "  Pray  forgive 
my  impertinence,"  said  he,  "but  you're  wearing  the 
most  beautiful  dress  I  ever  saw." 

It  was  hand-painted  muslin — a  fabulous  thing.  She 
laughed,  turned  to  Lena  Fontaine,  demure  in  a  simple 
fawn  costume. 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     353 

"  He's  improving.  Have  you  ever  known  him  to 
compliment  a  woman  on  her  dress  before  ?  " 

"  Many  times,"  said  Mrs.  Fontaine,  mendaciously. 

"  It  must  be  your  excellent  training,"  said  Clemen- 
tina. She  turned  to  Quixtus.  "  I've  seen  Huckaby 
this  morning,  and  everything's  quite  arranged  for  the 
transportation  of  your  necessary  books  and  specimens 
down  to  Moleham.  He'll  do  it  beautifully,  even  though 
it  takes  a  pantechnicon  van,  and  you  won't  be  worried 
about  it  at  all.  He's  a  splendid  fellow." 

"  He  is  rendering  me  invaluable  assistance." 

"  Dr.  Quixtus  tells  me  he  is  quite  an  old  friend  of 
yours,  Mrs.  Fontaine,"  said  Clementina.  "  What  a 
pity  you  can't  be  persuaded  to  come  down  to  Mole- 
ham." 

"  Are  you  going  to  have  a  chaperon  to  your  rather 
mixed  house-party  ?  " 

"  I  should  if  you  would  honour  me  by  coming,  my 
dear  Mrs.  Fontaine — a  dowager  dragon  of  propriety. 
But  an  Admiral  of  the  British  navy  is  quite  safeguard 
enough  for  me." 

The  hostess,  coming  through  the  edge  of  the  crowd, 
carried  off  Quixtus.  The  two  women  were  left  alone. 
Lena  Fontaine  turned  suddenly,  white-lipped,  shaking 
with  anger. 

"  I've  had  enough  of  it.  I'm  not  going  to  stand  it. 
I'm  not  going  to  be  persecuted  like  this  any  longer." 

"What  will  you  do?" 

Lena  Fontaine  clenched  her  small  hands.  What 
could  she  do. 

"  Come,  come,"  said  Clementina.  "  Let  us  have  a 
straight  talk  like  sensible  women,  and  put  the  pussy-cat 
aside,  if  we  can.  Sit  down.  Do.  There's  only  one 
point  of  dissension  between  us.  You  know  very  well 
what  it  is — there's  no  use  fencing.  Give  it  up.  Give 
up  all  idea  of  it  and  I'll  let  you  alone.  Give  it  all  up. 


354     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

You  can  see  for  yourself  that  I  won't  let  you  do  it." 

"  It's  outrageous  for  you  to  speak  to  me  like  this," 
said  the  other,  half  hysterically. 

"  I  know  it  is,"  said  Clementina  coolly.  "  I'm  an 
outrageous  woman.  Been  so  all  my  life.  To  do  an 
outrageous  thing  is  only  part  of  the  day's  work.  So 
I  just  say  outrageously :  give  it  up." 

Lena  Fontaine  fluttered  a  glance  at  the  strong  face 
and  caught  the  magnetism  of  the  black  glittering  eyes, 
and  remained  silent.  She  knew  that  she  was  no  match 
for  this  vital  creature.  She  was  confronting  over- 
whelming odds.  The  rough  fish-fag  of  Paris  who 
could  walk  straight  into  the  mould  of  a  great  lady  and 
carry  everything  contemptuously  before  her  suddenly 
impressed  her  with  a  paralysing  sense  of  something 
uncanny,  relentless,  irresistible.  She  was  less  a  woman 
than  an  implacable  force.  For  the  first  time  in  her  life 
of  Hagardom,  Lena  Fontaine  felt  beaten.  The  nun's 
face  grew  drawn  and  haggard.  Fright  replaced  the  al- 
lurement of  her  eyes.  She  said  nothing,  but  twisted 
one  gloved  hand  nervously  in  the  other.  She  was  at 
the  mercy  of  the  victor.  There  was  silence  for  some 
moments.  Then  Clementina's  heart  smote  her.  All 
this  elaborate  wheel  to  break  a  butterfly — a  very 
naughty,  sordid,  frayed  and  empty  little  butterfly — but 
still  a  butterfly! 

"  My  dear,"  she  said  at  last,  very  gently,  "  I  know 
how  hard  life  is  on  a  lone  and  defenceless  woman.  I 
know  you  have  many  reasons  to  hate  me  for  prevent- 
ing you  from  making  that  life  softer  and  sweeter.  But 
perhaps,  one  of  these  days,  you  mayn't  hate  me  so 
much.  I'm  every  infernal  thing  you  like  to  call  me, 
and  when  I'm  interfered  with  I'm  a  devil.  But  at 
heart  I'm  a  woman  and  a  good  sort.  I  won't  outrage 
you  by  saying  such  an  idiot  thing  as  '  Let  us  be 
friends/  when  you've  every  rational  desire  to  murder 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     355 

me;  but  I  ask  you  to  remember — and  I've  suffered 
enough  not  to  be  a  silly  fool  going  round  saying  seri- 
ous things  I  don't  mean — I  ask  you  to  remember  that 
if  ever  you  want  a  woman  to  turn  to,  you  can  count 
on  me.  I'm  a  good  bit  older  than  you,"  she  added  gen- 
erously, "I'm  thirty-six." 

"  Oh,  God !  "  cried  the  other,  bursting  into  tears, 
"  I'm  thirty-seven." 

"  Impossible,"  said  Clementina,  in  genuine  amaze- 
ment. "  You  look  nothing  like  it."  She  rose  and 
touched  the  weeping  woman's  shoulder.  "  Anyhow," 
she  said,  "  I've  a  certain  amount  of  female  horse-sense 
that  might  come  in  useful  if  you  want  it." 

Whereupon  Clementina  made  her  way  straight 
through  the  throng  to  her  hostess,  and  after  a  swift 
farewell  left  the  garden-party. 

The  enemy  was  finally  routed ;  the  confession  of  age, 
a  confession  of  defeat.  The  victory  had  been  achieved 
much  more  easily  than  she  had  anticipated.  When  she 
went  home  she  looked  with  a  queer  smile  into  one  of 
the  hanging  wardrobes  with  which  she  had  been 
obliged  to  furnish  her  bedroom  so  as  to  accommodate 
the  prodigious  quantity  of  new  dresses.  Why  all  the 
lavish  expenditure,  the  feverish  preparation,  the  many 
hours  wasted  at  great  dressmakers,  modistes,  and 
other  vendors  of  frippery — why  the  hairdressers,  the 
face  specialists — why  the  exquisite  torture  of  tight  lac- 
ing— why  the  responsibility  of  valuable  jewels,  her 
mother's,  up  till  then  safely  stored  at  the  bank — why 
the  renting  of  the  caravanserai  at  Moleham — why  the 
revolution  of  her  habits,  her  modes  of  expression,  her 
very  life — why,  in  short,  such  fantastic  means  to  gain 
so  simple  an  end?  Was  it  worth  it?  Clementina 
slammed  the  wardrobe  door  and  glanced  at  herself  in 
the  long  mirror  that  was  exposed.  She  saw  a  happy 
woman,  and  she  laughed.  It  was  worth  it.  She  had 


356     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

gained  infinitely  more  than  a  victory  over  a  poor  sister 
of  no  account.  Sheila  came  running  into  the  room. 

"  Oh,  what  a  beautiful  auntie !  " 

She  caught  the  child  to  her  and  hugged  her  close. 

The  legal  formalities  with  regard  to  Will  Ham- 
mersley's  affairs  were  eventually  concluded;  but  in 
spite  of  all  enquiries  the  identity  of  Sheila's  mother  re- 
mained a  curious  mystery.  No  record  of  Hammers- 
ley's  marriage  could  be  found,  either  at  Somerset 
House  or  at  Shanghai.  No  reference  to  his  wife  ap- 
peared in  the  papers  he  had  left  behind  him.  At  last,  a 
day  or  two  before  her  departure  for  Moleham,  Clemen- 
tina made  a  discovery. 

A  trunk  of  Hammersley's  merely  containing  suits  of 
clothes  and  other  wearing  apparel  had  remained  undis- 
posed of,  and  Clementina  was  going  through  them 
with  the  object  of  packing  them  off  to  some  charitable 
association,  when  from  the  folds  of  a  jacket  there 
dropped  a  bundle  of  letters  tied  round  with  a  bit  of 
tape.  She  glanced  idly  at  the  outer  sheet.  The  hand- 
writing was  a  woman's.  The  few  words  that  met  her 
eyes  showed  that  they  were  love-letters.  Clementina 
sat  on  an  empty  packing  case — all  Hammersley's  per- 
sonal belongings  had  been  dumped  in  her  box-room — 
and  balanced  the  bundle  in  her  hand.  They  were  sa- 
cred things  belonging  to  the  hearts  of  the  dead.  Ought 
she  to  read  them?  Yet  she  became  conscious  of  a 
feminine  intuition  that  they  might  hold  a  secret  that 
would  bring  comfort  to  the  living.  So  she  undid  the 
tape  and  spread  out  the  old  crumpled  pages,  and  as 
she  read,  a  tragedy,  a  romance  as  old  as  the  world  was 
revealed  to  her.  The  letters  dated  from  seven  years 
back.  They  were  from  one  Nora  Duglade,  a  woman 
wretchedly  married,  breaking  her  heart  for  Will  Ham- 
mersley.  Clementina  read  on.  Suddenly  she  gave  a 
sharp  cry  of  astonishment  and  leaped  to  her  feet. 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     357 

There  was  a  reference  to  Angela  Quixtus,  who  was  in 
her  confidence.  Clementina  rapidly  scanned  page  after 
page  and  found  more  and  more  of  Angela.  The 
writer,  like  most  women,  could  not  bear  to  destroy  the 
beloved  letters ;  she  dared  not  keep  them  at  home ;  An- 
gela had  lent  her  a  drawer  in  her  bureau. 

Clementina  telephoned  to  Quixtus  to  come  imme- 
diately on  urgent  business.  In  twenty  minutes  he  ar- 
rived, somewhat  scared.  Was  anything  wrong  with 
Sheila? 

"  I've  found  out  who  her  mother  was,"  said  Clem- 
entina. 

"  Who  was  she  ?  "  he  asked  quickly. 

She  bade  him  sit  down.  They  were  in  the  drawing 
room. 

"  Some  one  called  Nora  Duglade.  ...  I  don't 
remember  her." 

Quixtus  passed  his  hand  over  his  forehead  as  he 
threw  back  his  thoughts. 

"  Mrs.  Duglade.  .  .  ."  he  said  in  bewilderment, 
"  Mrs.  Duglade.  .  .  ." 

"  A  friend  of  Angela's,"  said  Clementina. 

"  Yes.  A  school  friend.  They  saw  very  little  of 
each  other.  I  met  her  only  once  or  twice.  I  had  no 
notion  Hammersley  knew  her.  .  .  .  Her  husband 
was  a  brute,  I  remember — used  to  beat  her.  .  .  . 
I  think  I  heard  she  had  left  him " 

"  For  Will  Hammersley." 

"  He  died  years  ago  ...  of  drink.  .  .  . 
Oh-h !  "  He  shuddered  and  hid  his  face  in  his  hands, 

"  Read  these  few  pages,"  said  Clementina,  and  she 
left  the  room  very  quietly. 

About  ten  minutes  afterwards  she  came  in  again. 
He  sprang  up  from  his  chair  and  grasped  both  her 
hands.  His  eyes  were  wet  and  his  lips  worked  tremu- 
lously. 


358     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

"  I  found  a  letter  from  Hammersley  in  Angela's 
drawer — it  had  got  stuck  at  the  back.  ...  It  was 

for  the  other  woman,  my  dear "  his  voice  quavered 

into  the  treble.  "  It  was  for  the  other  woman." 

She  led  him  to  the  stiff  sofa  and  sat  beside  him  and 
held  his  hand.  And  she  had  the  joy  of  seeing  a  black 
cloud  melt  away  from  a  man's  soul. 

From  that  hour  when  he  had  revealed  to  her  the 
things  deep  and  sacred,  dark  and  despairing  of  his 
heart,  and  had  gone  forth  from  her  sympathy  aglow 
with  a  new-found  faith  in  humanity,  the  bond  between 
them  was  strengthened  a  thousandfold.  Quixtus  found 
that  he  could  obtain  not  only  swift  response  to  his 
thoughts  from  a  keen  intelligence,  but  wide,  undreamed 
of  understanding  of  all  those  subtle  workings  of  the 
spirit,  regrets,  hopes,  judgments,  prejudices,  shrink- 
ings,  wonderings,  impulses,  which  are  too  elusive  to 
be  thoughts,  too  vague  to  be  emotions.  And  yet,  she 
herself  was  never  subtle.  She  was  direct  and  uncom- 
promising. As  a  shivering  man  enters  a  cosy  room 
and  warms  himself  before  a  blazing  fire,  so  did  he  un- 
questioningly  warm  his  heart  in  Clementina's  per- 
sonality. And  as  the  shivering  man  knows,  without 
speculating,  that  the  fire  is  intense  and  strong,  so  did 
he  know  that  Clementina  was  intense  and  strong. 

All  through  the  idyll  of  the  remaining  summer,  he 
felt  this  more  and  more.  She  stood  for  something 
that  he  had  missed  in  life,  something  that  Angela,  pale, 
passionless,  negative  reflection  of  himself,  had  never 
given  him.  She  stood  for  richness,  bigness,  meaning. 
A  simple  man,  not  given  to  introspection  or  analysis  of 
motive,  new  sensations,  new  realisations  came  to  him 
as  they  come  to  a  child  and  caused  development.  And 
among  other  impressions  that  deepened  on  his  mind — 
and  his  was  the  mind  of  a  scholar  and  dreamer,  sweet 
and  clean — was  that  of  Clementina  (now  appearing  to 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     359 

the  world  as  God  Almighty  intended  her  to  appear)  as 
a  physically  fine  and  splendid  creature. 

And,  during  all  the  summer  idyll  in  the  Manor 
House  at  Moleham-on-Thames,  Clementina,  in  her  un- 
compromising way,  maintained  the  new  phoenix's 
plumage  preened  and  shiny.  The  old  habit  of  clawing 
at  her  hair  while  she  was  painting  she  circumvented 
by  tying  her  head  in  an  Angelica  Kauffmann  handker- 
chief. Tommy  made  her  a  present  of  one,  in  cardinal 
red,  in  which  she  flamed  gipsy-like  about  the  studio. 
Involuntarily,  inevitably,  the  manner  of  all  the  men  in 
her  house-party,  Quixtus,  Huckaby,  Admiral  Concan- 
non,  Poynter  (who  spent  a  week-end),  Tommy  and 
Tommy's  cronies  who  came  and  went  as  they  pleased, 
was  tinged  with  a  deference  and  a  homage  which  made 
life  a  thing  of  meaning  and  delight. 

Sometimes  a  little  scene  like  this  would  take  place : 

To  Clementina  painting  hard  in  the  morning,  enter 
the  housekeeper. 

"  Please,  ma'am,  we'll  soon  be  out  of  wine." 

She  would  frown  at  the  canvas.  "  Well,  what  of 
it?" 

"  The  gentlemen,  ma'am." 

"  Oh,  let  them  drink  ginger-beer." 

"  Very  well,  ma'am." 

Then  with  a  laugh  she  would  fling  down  her  brushes, 
and  go  and  attend  to  her  cellar.  To  make  the  men 
in  her  house  comfortable,  the  commonplace  care  of  a 
hostess,  gave  her  unimagined  pleasure.  Etta  and  her 
young  friends  could  look  after  themselves,  being  fe- 
males and  therefore  resourceful.  But  the  men  were 
helpless  children,  even  the  Admiral;  sometimes,  she 
thought — especially  the  Admiral.  Their  nourishment 
became  a  matter  of  peculiar  solicitude.  She  invented 
wants  for  them  which  she  forthwith  supplied.  Some- 
times she  summoned  Tommy  to  consultation.  But 


360     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

when  he  gravely  prescribed  a  large  bath  powder-puff 
for  his  uncle  she  upbraided  him  for  making  a  jest  of 
solemn  things  and  dismissed  him  from  her  counsels. 
Her  painting  suffered  from  these  inroads  on  her  time 
and  thoughts;  but  Clementina  cared  not.     The  happi- 
ness of  the  trustful  men  around  her  was  of  more  con- 
sequence than  the  successful  application  of  paint  to  , 
canvas.     Sometimes,  sitting  at  the  head  of  her  table  • 
she  would  feel  herself  a  mother  to  them  all,  and  her 
lips  would  twist  themselves  into  a  new  smile. 

Her  happiest  hours  were  those  which  she  spent  alone 
with  Sheila  and  Quixtus.  Since  the  cloud  had  been 
lifted  from  his  soul  he  loved  the  child  with  a  new  ten- 
derness, thus  inarticulately  expressing  his  gratitude 
to  God  for  having  put  it  into  his  heart  to  love  her 
while  the  cloud  hung  heavy.  And  Clementina  knew 
this,  and  invested  his  relations  with  the  child  in  a  curi- 
ous sanctity.  She  loved  to  share  with  him  the  child's 
affection  in  actual  physical  presence.  The  late  after- 
noon was  Sheila's  hour.  Clementina  would  sit  with 
them  beneath  the  great  cedar  tree  on  the  lawn  and 
listen  to  the  stories  he  had  learned  to  pour  into  Sheila's 
insatiable  ears.  They  were  mostly  odds  and  ends  of 
folk-lore.  But  now  and  then  she  suspected  heterogene- 
ous strains ;  and  one  day  she  called  out : 

"  Are  you  inventing  all  that,  Ephraim  ?  " 

He  confessed  with  the  air  of  a  detected  schoolboy. 

"  To  hear  you  playing  the  deuce  with  folk-lore  which 
you  regard  as  a  strict  and  sacred  science  amazes  me. 
From  you  it  sounds  almost  immoral." 

Quixtus  fingered  the  soft  curls.  "  What,"  said  he, 
"  is  all  the  science  in  the  world  compared  with  this 
little  head?" 

Clementina  was  silent  for  a  moment.  Then  she  said 
abruptly.  "  You  feel  like  that,  too,  do  you  ?  " 

Quixtus  nodded  and  dreamed  over  the  curls. 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     361 

"  But  what  happened  to  the  princes  and  the  Ju-ju 
man?"  demanded  Sheila,  and  Quixtus  had  to  pursue 
his  immoral  course. 

August  melted  into  September,  and  September  drew 
to  its  close.  Admiral  Concannon  and  Etta  and  all  the 
boys  and  girls,  save  Tommy,  had  gone,  and  Huckaby 
was  busy  with  the  repacking  of  books  and  specimens. 
The  weather  had  broken.  The  trees  dripped  with  rain 
and  the  leaves  began  to  fall.  Mists  rose  from  the 
meadows  by  the  river  and  a  blue  haze,  sweet  and  sad, 
enveloped  the  low-lying  hills.  In  the  garden  the  sun- 
flowers, a  week  before  so  glorious,  hung  their  heads 
with  a  dying  grace.  The  birds,  even  the  thrushes, 
were  mute.  The  hour  under  the  cedar  tree  had  become 
the  hour  of  deepening  twilight  by  the  fireside.  The 
idyll  was  over.  London  called.  .  .  . 


They  had  been  sitting  before  the  drawing-room  fire 
for  a  long  time  without  speaking.  Sheila,  with  a  toy 
shop  and  an  army  of  dolls  for  customers,  played  on  the 
floor  between  them,  absorbed  in  her  game.  No  one 
of  the  three  noticed  that  darkness  had  crept  into  the 
room,  for  the  fire  leaped  and  flamed,  throwing  on  them 
fierce  lights  and  shadows. 

"  The  day  after  to-morrow,"  said  Clementina,  break- 
ing the  silence,  and  looking  intently  at  the  blaze. 

"  Yes,"  said  Quixtus.    "  The  day  after  to-morrow." 

"  I  think  you'll  find  I've  made  all  arrangements  for 
Sheila.  Atkins  understands."  Atkins  was  the  nurse. 
"  I've  seen  about  the  nursery  fender  which  I  had  over- 
looked. .  .  .  You  mustn't  let  Atkins  bully  you, 
or  she'll  get  out  of  hand.  .  .  .  How  these  three 
months  have  flown !  " 

"  If  you  didn't  insist,"  said  Quixtus,  "  I  wouldn't 
take  her  from  you.  But  you'll  miss  her  terribly." 


362     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

"  So  will  you  when  my  turn  comes  again,"  replied 
Clementina  gruffly.  "  What's  the  good  of  talking  rub- 
bish?" 

There  was  another  silence.  He  glanced  at  her,  and 
a  sudden  flame  from  the  fire  lit  up  her  face  and  he  saw 
that  her  brows  were  bent  and  her  mouth  set  grimly 
tight  and  that  something  glistened  for  a  second  on  each 
cheek  and  then  fell  quickly.  And  each  time  he  glanced 
at  her  he  saw  the  same  glistening  drop  fall. 

"  Uncle  Ephim,"  said  Sheila,  coming  and  insinuat- 
ing herself  between  his  legs,  "  Mrs.  Brown  wants  to 
buy  some  matches  and  I  haven't  got  any." 

He  gave  her  his  silver  match-box  and  Sheila  went 
away  happy  to  her  game. 

Clementina  choked  a  sob. 

"  My  dear,"  said  he  at  last 
.    "  Yes  ?  "  said  Clementina. 

"  Why  shouldn't  we  have  her  always  with  us  ?  " 

"You  mean ?"  said  Clementina,  after  a  pause, 

and  still  looking  into  the  fire. 

"  Even  with  her,  I  can't  face  that  great  lonely  house. 
I  can't  face  my  empty,  lonely  existence.  My  dear," 
said  he,  bending  forward  in  his  chair,  "  it  has  come  to 
this — that  I  can't  think  a  thought  or  feel  an  emotion 
without  you  becoming  inextricably  interwoven  with  it. 
You  have  grown  into  the  texture  of  my  life.  I  know 
I  may  be  impertinent  and  presumptuous  in  putting  such 
a  proposal  before  you " 

"  You  haven't  put  one  yet,"  said  Clementina. 

"  It  is  that  you  would  do  me  the  honour  of  marrying 
me,"  replied  Quixtus. 

Again  there  was  silence.  For  the  first  time  in  her 
life  she  was  afraid  to  speak,  lest  she  should  betray  the 
commotion  in  her  being.  She  loved  him.  She  did  not 
hide  the  fact  from  herself.  It  was  not  the  mad,  gor- 
geous passion  of  romance;  she  knew  it  for  something 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     363, 

deeper,  stronger,  based  on  essentials.  He  lay  deeply 
rooted  in  her  heart,  half  child  for  her  mothering,  all 
man  for  her  loving.  When  had  she  begun  to  care  for 
him  ?  She  scarcely  knew.  Perhaps  at  Marseilles,  when 
he  had  returned  to  her  for  companionship  and  they  had 
walked  out  arm  in  arm.  She  knew  that  he  spoke  truly 
of  his  need  of  her.  But  the  words  that  mattered,  the 
foolish  little  words,  he  had  not  uttered. 

"  Do  you  care  for  me  enough  to  marry  me  ?  "  she 
asked  at  last. 

He  glanced  at  Sheila  weighing  out  matches  in  her 
toy  scales.  It  is  difficult  to  carry  on  a  love-scene  with 
conviction  in  the  presence  of  a  third  party,  even  of  that 
of  a  beloved  child  of  five. 

"  Very,  very,  deeply,"  he  said  in  a  low  voice. 

The  dressing-bell  rang  and  Clementina  rose.  "  Put 
up  your  shop,  darling.  It's  time  to  go  to  bed."  Then 
she  crossed  to  Quixtus's  chair  and  stood  behind  him 
and  laid  one  arm  on  his  shoulder.  He  kissed  her  hand. 

"  Well  ?  "  said  he,  looking  up. 

"  I'll  tell  you  presently,"  she  said,  and  in  withdraw- 
ing her  hand  she  lightly  brushed  his  cheek. 

Quixtus  dressed  quickly  and  came  down  early  to  the 
drawing-room,  and  soon  Clementina  appeared.  She 
was  wearing  a  red  dress  which  she  had  bought  during 
her  wholesale  purchasing  of  raiment,  but  had  never  yet 
worn,  thinking  it  too  flaring,  and  she  had  a  red  dahlia 
in  her  hair.  Quixtus  took  both  her  hands  and  raised 
them  to  his  shoulders,  and  she  stood  away  from  him 
at  the  distance  of  her  bare,  shapely  arms,  and  she 
smiled  into  his  eyes. 

"  Your  answer  ?  "  said  he. 

"  Tell  me,"  she  said,  "  what  do  you  really  want  me 
for?" 

"  For  yourself,"  he  cried,  and  he  caught  her  in  his 
arms  with  swift  passion  and  kissed  her. 


364     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

"  If  you  hadn't  said  that,"  she  remarked  a  few  mo- 
ments afterwards,  "  I  don't  know  what  my  answer 
would  have  been.  At  any  rate,"  she  added,  touching 
her  hair  with  uplifted  hands,  "  it  would  not  have  been 
quite  so  spontaneous.' 

He  leaned  his  elbow  on  the  mantelpiece  and  a  great 
light  came  into  his  pale  blue  eyes  as  he  looked  at  her. 

"  Do  you  think,  my  dear,"  said  he,  "  that  I'm  such 
a  dry  stick  of  a  man  as  not  to  want  you  for  your  great 
self — your  great,  splendid,  and  wonderful  self  ?  I  want 
you  with  everything  in  me." 

She  turned  half  aside  and  said  gently: 

"  That's  all  a  woman  wants,  Ephraim." 

"What?" 

"  To  be  wanted,"  said  Clementina. 

It  was  not  till  the  next  day  that  she  told  Tommy  the 
great  news.  She  took  him  for  a  walk  and  broke  it  to 
him  bluntly.  But  he  was  prepared  for  it.  Etta  had 
foreseen  and  had  prophesied  to  his  sceptical  ears.  He 
murmured  well-bred  congratulations. 

"  But  your  painting,"  said  he,  after  a  while. 

"  It  can  go  hang,"  said  Clementina.  She  laughed  at 
his  look  of  horror.  "  Art  for  the  polygamous  man  and 
the  celibate  woman.  A  man  can  throw  his  soul  into 
his  pictures  and  also  attend  to  his  wife  and  family. 
That's  out  of  a  woman's  power.  She  must  choose  be- 
tween her  art  on  the  one  side,  and  husband  and  chil- 
dren on  the  other — I'm  telling  you  this,  mon  petit,  for 
your  education.  I've  chosen  husband  and  children  as 
any  woman  with  blood  in  her  veins  would  choose.  It's 
the  women  without  blood  that  choose  art — don't  make 
any  mistake  about  it.  Now  and  then  one  of  'em 
chooses  the  other — and,  as  she  doesn't  get  any  children 
and  doesn't  know  what  the  deuce  to  do  with  a  husband, 
falls  back  on  her  art  again  and  gives  the  poor  devil 
soup  with  camel-hair  brushes  floating  about  it  and  a 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     365 

painting-rag  for  a  napkin,  and  then  there  are  ructions, 
and  she  goes  among  her  weary  pals  and  says  that  their 
sex  is  misunderstood  and  down-trodden,  and  they  must 
clamour  for  their  rights.  Bosh !  " 

She  sniffed  in  her  old  way.    Tommy  insisted. 

"  But  you're  a  born  painter,  Clementina.  A  great 
painter.  It  means  such  a  tremendous  sacrifice." 

"  You  young  men  of  the  present  day  make  me 
tired !  "  she  exclaimed.  "  You  all  seem  to  think  that 
larks  ought  to  fall  ready  roasted  into  your  mouth. 
There's  not  a  blessed  thing  in  this  world  worth  having 
without  sacrifice.  The  big  people,  the  people  that  have 
the  big  things  in  life  are  those  that  have  paid  or  are 
prepared  to  pay  the  big  price  for  them." 

"  I  don't  see  why  you  should  round  on  me  like  that," 
said  Tommy.  "  After  all,  a  little  while  ago  I  made  no 
bones  about  sacrificing  the  loaves  and  fishes  for  the 
sake  of  my  art — I  don't  want  to  brag — but  fiat  justicia 
at  any  rate." 

"  I  know  what  you  did,"  said  Clementina,  mollified, 
"  and  if  you  hadn't  done  it,  I  shouldn't  be  talking  like 
this  to  you.  And  you're  a  painter  and  my  very  dear 
Tommy,  and  you  can  understand — Of  course,  I'll  go 
on  painting — I've  got  it  in  my  blood.  I  could  no  more 
do  without  a  paint  brush  handy  than  a  tooth  brush. 
But  it's  going  to  be  secondary.  I'll  be  the  gifted  ama- 
teur. Clementina  Wing,  painter  of  portraits  to  the  no- 
bility, gentry,  mayoralty,  and  pork-butchery  of  Great 
Britain  and  Ireland  is  dead.  You  can  paraphrase  the 
epitaph.  *  Here  lies  Clementina  Wing,  the  married 
woman/  And,  Tommy,  my  dear,"  she  added  in  a 
softer  voice,  "  You  can  add  to  it : '  Sic  itur  ad  astro,!  " 

"  I  do  hope  you'll  be  jolly  happy,"  said  Tommy. 

On  their  way  back  it  happened  that  the  postman  met 
them  with  the  household  budget.  She  took  the  letters 
into  the  hall  and  sorted  them.  Tommy  went  off  with 


366     THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

his  precious  epistle  from  Etta.  Huckaby  appeared  in 
quest  of  his  chiefs  correspondence,  and,  seeing  her 
alone,  congratulated  her  on  her  approaching  marriage. 
She  thanked  him  and  held  out  a  letter  addressed  to  him 
from  Dinard. 

"  I've  been  dealing  in  quotations  lately,"  she  said, 
"  and  I  find  I've  got  one  for  you,  '  Go  thou  and  do 
likewise.' ' 

Huckaby  sighed  and  laughed. 

"  One  of  these  days,  perhaps,"  said  he. 

So  the  idyll  that  seemed  to  be  coming  to  an  end  had 
only  just  begun.  They  returned  to  London,  and  while 
Clementina  (in  whose  charge  Sheila  now  remained) 
painted  frenziedly  to  finish  the  work  she  had  in  hand, 
Quixtus,  with  her  help,  reorganised  the  great  gaunt 
house  in  Russell  Square.  The  worm-eaten  scarecrow  of 
a  billiard  table  was  removed  from  the  billiard-room 
built  by  Quixtus' s  father  over  the  garden  at  the  back 
of  the  house,  and  the  room,  spacious  and  top-lighted, 
was  converted  into  a  studio  for  the  bride  to  be.  Tom- 
my, enthusiastically  iconoclast,  being  given  authority, 
under  Clementina's  directions,  to  refurnish,  condemned 
rep  curtains,  mahogany  mid- Victorian  furniture — a 
dining-room  sideboard  disfigured  by  carvings  of  ple- 
thoric fruit  had  sent  shivers  down  his  back  since  in- 
fancy— Turkey  carpets  and  all  the  gloom  of  a  bygone 
age,  and  converted  the  grim  abode  into  a  bower  of  de- 
light. 

And  towards  the  end  of  October  the  oddly  mated 
pair  were  married,  and  Clementina  went  to  her  hus- 
band's home  and  the  patter  of  the  feet  of  the  beloved 
child  of  their  adoption  was  heard  about  the  house  and 
great  joy  fell  upon  them. 

One  day,  in  the  early  spring,  Quixtus  burst  into  the 
studio,  a  letter  in  hand.  The  greatest  of  all  honours 
that  the  civilised  world  has  to  give  to  the  scholar  had 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA     367 

fallen  on  him — honorary  membership  of  the  Institut  de 
France.  She  must  know  of  it  at  once. 

She  was  sitting  before  the  easel,  a  bit  of  charcoal  in 
hand,  absorbed  in  her  drawing.  What  he  saw  on  the 
drawing-paper  put,  for  the  moment,  the  Institute  of 
France  out  of  his  mind.  Two  arms  came  from  the 
vague,  headless  trunk  of  a  draped  woman;  one  arm 
clasped  Sheila,  a  living  portrait,  and  the  other  some- 
thing all  chubby,  kissable  curves,  such  as  Murillo  has 
rendered  immortal.  As  soon  as  she  was  aware  of  his 
presence  she  tore  the  sheet  from  the  board,  and  looked 
at  him  somewhat  defiantly.  He  went  up  and  put  his 
arm  round  her,  deeply  moved. 

"  My  dear,"  said  he,  "  I  saw.  You're  the  only 
woman  in  the  world  that  could  have  done  it.  Let  me 
look.  I  can  share  it  with  you,  dear." 

She  yielded.  His  delicate  perception  of  the  inner- 
most sweetnesses  of  life  was  infinitely  dear  to  her.  She 
set  the  drawing  upright  on  the  ledge.  He  drew  a  chair 
close  to  her  and  sat  down,  and  he  forgot  the  crowning 
glory  of  his  intellectual  life. 

"  It's  not  bad  of  Sheila,  is  it?  "  she  said. 

"And  the  other?" 

She  kissed  him.  "  The  very  image.  It's  bound  to 
be." 

Presently  she  laughed  and  said : 

"  I've  been  thinking  of  the  good  St.  Paul  lately.  He 
has  a  lot  to  say  about  glory.  Do  you  remember? 
About  the  glory  of  celestial  bodies  and  bodies  terres- 
trial. '  There  is  one  glory  of  the  sun  and  another  glory 
of  the  moon  and  another  glory  of  the  stars.'  But  there 
is  one  glory  which  that  eminent  bachelor  never 
dreamed  of." 

"  And  what  is  that,  my  dear?  "  asked  Quixtus. 

"  The  glory  of  being  a  woman,"  said  Clementina. 

THE  END. 


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Reconstructed    Marriage,   A.     By  Amelia  Barr. 

Redemption  of  Kenneth  Gait,  The.     By  Will  N.  Harben. 

Red    House  on   Rowan   Street.     By  Roman   Doubleday. 

Red   Mouse,  The.     By  Wlllia.m  Hamilton  Osborne. 

Red  Pepper  Burns.     By  Grace  S.  Richmond. 

Refugees,  The.     By  A.  Conan  Doyle. 

Rejuvenation  of  Aunt  Mary,  The.     By  Anne  Warner. 

Road  to  Providence,  The.     By  Maria  Thompson  Daviess. 

Romance   of   a    Plain    Man,   The.     By  Ellen   Glasgow. 

Rose   in   the   Ring,   The.     By  George  Barr  McCutcheon. 

Rose  of  Old   Harpeth,  The.     By  Maria  Thompson  Daviess. 

Rose  of  the  World.     By  Agnes  and  Egerton  Castle. 

Round  the  Corner  in  Gay  Street.     By  Grace  S.  Richmond. 

Routledge      Rides  Alone.    By  Will  Livingston   Comfort. 

Running    Fight,    The.     By  Wm.   Hamilton   Osborne. 

Seats  of  the   Mighty,   The.    By  Gilbert  Parker. 

Septimus.     By  William  J.  Locke. 

Set  in  Silver.     By  C.  N.  and  A.  M.  Williamson. 

Self- Raised.     (Illustrated.)     By  Mrs.   Southworth. 

Shepherd  of  the  Hills,  The.     By  Harold  Bell  Wright. 

Sheriff  cf  Dyke   Hole,  The.     By  Ridgwell  Cullum. 

Sidney  Carteret.   Rancher.     By  Harold  Bindloss. 

Simon  the  Jester.     By  William  J.  Locke. 

Silver   Eiada,   The.     By  Charles  E.   Walk. 

Silver   Horde,  The.     By  Rex  Beach. 

Sir   Nigel.     By  A.  Conan  Doyle. 

Sir    Richard    Caimady.     By   Lucas  Malet. 

Skyman,  The.     By  Henry  Ketchell  Webster. 

Slim  Princess,  The.     By  George  Ade. 

Speckled   Bird,  A.     By  Augusta  Evans  Wilson. 

Spirit   In    Prison,   A.     By  Robert  Hichens. 

Spirit  of  the  Border,  The.    By  Zane  Grey. 

Spirit  Trail,  The.     By  Kate  and  Virgil  D.  Boyles. 

Spoilers,  The.     By  Rex  Beach. 

Stanton   Wins.     By  Eleanor  M.  Ingram. 

St.   Elmo.    (Illustrated  Edition.)     By  Augusta  J.  Evans. 

Stolen   Singer,   The.     By  Martha  Bellinger. 

Stooping   Lady,  The.     By  Maurice  Hewlett. 

Story  of  the   Outlaw,  The.    By  Emerson  Hough. 

Strawberry  Acres.     By  Grace  S.  Richmond. 

Strawberry    Handkerchief,   The.     By  Amelia  E.   Barr. 

Sunnyside  of  the  Hill.  The.    By  Rosa  Nr.  Carey. 

Sunset  Trail,  The.    By  Alfred  Henry  Lewis. 


Popular  Copyright  Books 

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Ask  your  dealer  for    a  complete  list  of 
A.  L.  Burt  Company  a  Popular  Copyright  Fiction. 


Susan  Clegg  and  Her  Friend  Mrs.  Lathrop.    By  Anne  Warner. 

Sword  of  the  Old  Frontier,  A.    By  Randall  Parrlsh. 

Tales  of  Sherlock  Holmes.     By  A.  Conan  Doyle. 

Tennessee  Shad,  The.     By  Owen  Johnson. 

Tess  of  the   D'Urbervilles.     By  Thomas  Hardy. 

Texican,  The.     By  Dane  Coolidge. 

That  Printer  of  Udell's.     By  Harold  Bell  Wright. 

Three  Brothers,  The.     By  Eden  Phlllpotts. 

Throwback,  The.     By  Alfred  Henry  Lewis. 

Thurston   of  Orchard   Valley.    By  Harold  Bindloss. 

Title   Market,  The.     By  Emily  Post. 

Torn  Sails.    A  Tale  of  a  Welsh  Village.    By  Allen  Raine. 

Trail  of  the  Axe,  The.    By  Ridgwell  Cullum. 

Treasure  of  Heaven,  The.    By  Marie  Corelli. 

Two-Gun   Man,  The.     By  Charles  Alden  Seltzer. 

Two  Van  revels,  The.     By  Booth  Tarkington. 

Uncle  William.     By  Jennette  Lee. 

Up  from  Slavery.     By  Booker  T.  Washington. 

Vanity  Box,  The.     By  C.  N.  Williamson. 

Vashti.     By  Augusta  Evans  Wilson. 

Varmint,  The.     By  Owen  Johnson. 

Vigilante   Girl,  A.     By  Jerome  Hart. 

Village  of  Vagabonds,  A.     By  F.  Berkeley  Smith. 

Visioning,  The.     By  Susan  Glaspell. 

Voice  of  the  People,  The.     By  Ellen  Glasgow. 

Wanted — A  Chaperon.     By  Paul  Leicester  Ford. 

Wanted:  A  Matchmaker.     By  Paul  Leicester  Ford. 

Watchers  of  the  Plains,  The.     Ridgwell  Cullum, 

Wayfarers,  The.     By  Mary  Stewart  Cutting. 

Way  of  a  Man,  The.    By  Emerson  Hough. 

Weavers,  The.    By  Gilbert  Parker. 

When  Wilderness  Was  King.     By  Randall  Parrish. 

Where  the  Trail  Divides.     By  Will  Lillibridge. 

White  Sister,  The.     By  Marlon  Crawford. 

Window  at  the  White  Cat,  The.    By  Mary  Roberts  Rhinehart. 

Winning  of   Barbara  Worth,   The.    By  Harold  Bell  Wright. 

With  Juliet  in  England.     By  Grace  S.  Richmond. 

Woman  Haters,  The.    By  Joseph  C.  Lincoln. 

Woman  In  Question,  The.    By  John  Reed  Scott. 

Woman  In  the  Alcove,  The.    By  Anna  Katharine  Green. 

Yellow  Circle,  The.     By  Charles  E.  Walk. 

Yellow   Letter,  The.     By  William  Johnston. 

Younger  Set,  The.     By  Robert  W.  Chambers. 


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